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Township and Range: How to Read a PLSS Description

Township and range places land on the federal survey grid. Read a PLSS legal description, number sections, find a parcel's section and check acreage.

Pillar team16 min read

Township and range is the grid of the federal Public Land Survey System (PLSS), used to describe land in 30 states. Townships are rows about 6 miles wide, numbered north or south of a baseline. Ranges are columns numbered east or west of a principal meridian. Each township holds 36 sections of about 640 acres.

Pillar, a land research software company, wrote this guide. The statutes, federal manuals and public records below link to their sources, and we checked them on November 12, 2026. This is general information. Confirm anything that affects a purchase with a licensed surveyor or real estate attorney in the state where the land sits.

What is township and range?

The PLSS divides land into squares measured from fixed starting lines. The Bureau of Land Management's 2009 Manual of Surveying Instructions, which we call the BLM manual below, sets out the plan in section 3-3:

  • Initial point. A fixed point that starts one survey region.
  • Principal meridian. A true north-south line through the initial point.
  • Baseline. An east-west line through the same point. Each meridian has its own baseline, BLM's Specifications for Descriptions of Land notes, so a description names only the meridian.
  • Township lines. East-west lines every 6 miles. The rows between them are numbered from 1 at the baseline: Township 1 North, Township 2 North, and the same to the south.
  • Range lines. North-south lines every 6 miles. The columns between them are numbered from 1 at the meridian, east and west.

Where a row and a column cross, they enclose a township of about 36 square miles. The manual (section 3-2), summarizing 43 U.S.C. 751, says the law divides each township into 36 sections, "each 1 mile square and containing 640 acres as nearly as may be." BLM's GLO Records site puts a typical township at about 23,040 acres.

BLM's Specifications note that "township" means both a 6-mile-wide row and the 6-mile square inside it. Neither is a civil township, the unit of local government in some states. As a 1903 county atlas excerpt published by the Newberry Library puts it, "frequently the lines of organized Townships do not conform to the Government Township lines."

How are sections numbered in a township?

Sections are numbered back and forth like a snake. The BLM manual (section 3-3) says numbering starts with 1 in the northeast section, runs west to 6, drops south to 7, runs east to 12, and continues alternately to 36 in the southeast section. Seen from above with north at the top:

 6    5    4    3    2    1
 7    8    9   10   11   12
18   17   16   15   14   13
19   20   21   22   23   24
30   29   28   27   26   25
31   32   33   34   35   36

Sections 1 through 6 form the north row, and sections 6, 7, 18, 19, 30 and 31 form the west column. Remember them: that row and column are where sections come out smaller or larger than 640 acres.

The description below is our own example. It does not come from a real deed.

The NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 14, Township 3 North,
Range 2 West of the Fifth Principal Meridian.

This example starts with the smallest piece and ends with the largest, a common order, though some descriptions name the meridian first. Read this one backward, starting with the meridian.

  1. Fifth Principal Meridian. This names the grid. The BLM manual's Table 3-1 lists the Fifth Principal Meridian, adopted in 1815, as governing surveys in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and South Dakota.
  2. Township 3 North (T3N). The third row north of the baseline. Each row is 6 miles, so its south line is nominally 12 miles north of the baseline and its north line 18 miles.
  3. Range 2 West (R2W). The second column west of the meridian, nominally 6 to 12 miles west.
  4. Section 14. In the grid above, section 14 is in the third row from the top, second from the east. That puts it 1 to 2 miles west of the township's east line and 3 to 4 miles north of its south line.
  5. SW 1/4. The southwest quarter of section 14: 640 ÷ 4 = 160 acres, a half mile on each side.
  6. NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4. The northeast quarter of that quarter: 160 ÷ 4 = 40 acres.

Check the 40 acres from its size. A quarter-quarter is a quarter mile on each side, or 1,320 feet. 1,320 × 1,320 = 1,742,400 square feet, and 1,742,400 ÷ 43,560 = 40 acres.

Putting the numbers together, this 40-acre square sits nominally between 15.25 and 15.5 miles north of the baseline and 7.5 to 7.75 miles west of the meridian. Real survey lines drift from these figures, for reasons covered below, so use the arithmetic to understand a description, not to locate land.

Aliquot parts and their acreage

Halves and quarters of a section are called aliquot parts. BLM's GLO Records article lists their nominal sizes. Start with 640, divide by 2 for each half and by 4 for each quarter:

  • Section: 640 acres
  • Half section (N 1/2): 320 acres
  • Quarter section (SW 1/4): 160 acres
  • Half of a quarter (E 1/2 of the SW 1/4): 80 acres
  • Quarter-quarter (NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4): 40 acres
  • Quarter-quarter-quarter (SE 1/4 of the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4): 10 acres

BLM's Specifications generally limit federal aliquot descriptions to four parts, such as a 2½-acre SE1/4NE1/4NE1/4SW1/4, because longer ones "tend to invite error." Smaller pieces normally get lot numbers through an official survey or supplemental plat, and the policy allows exceptions where the division line's location on the ground does not and will not govern. Private deeds are not bound by that federal policy.

"Of the" and "and the" change the answer

Order matters. "The NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4" and "the SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4" are different 40-acre squares. They touch at a single point, the center of the section.

Joining words matter too. BLM's Specifications, written for federal land orders, say that in compact notation "a comma means 'AND THE' and the absence of a comma means 'OF THE'." Its example: NE1/4SW1/4SE1/4 is one 10-acre piece, while NE1/4, SW1/4, SE1/4 is three quarter sections totaling 480 acres. Deeds usually spell the words out, so count every "and":

  • "The N 1/2 of the NW 1/4 and the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 14" is two pieces: 80 + 40 = 120 acres.
  • "The N 1/2 of the SE 1/4 of Section 14, except the West 330 feet" starts at 80 acres, a strip 2,640 feet wide and 1,320 feet deep. The exception is 330 × 1,320 = 435,600 square feet, or 10 acres. That leaves 70 acres, nominally.

How many acres are in a section?

A standard section is 640 acres, about 1 mile on each side. A quarter section is 160 acres, a quarter-quarter 40, and a township of 36 sections about 23,040. These are nominal. The BLM manual (section 3-32) says 25 of a regular township's 36 sections are returned as 640 acres each, and the other 11 are not. Our acreage calculator converts feet, chains and acres if you need to check a figure.

Government lots and fractional sections: why a section isn't always 640 acres

A grid of squares cannot fit a round earth. Range lines run true north, so they draw closer together going north. The BLM manual (section 1-30) says this convergence "is taken up at intervals by the running of standard parallels, on which the measurements are again made full." Standard parallels were first called correction lines, and range lines jog where they meet one. The manual (section 3-13) sets the interval at 24 miles; older surveys used 30 or 36.

The survey also pushes measuring errors to one side. Federal law says the excess or deficiency in a township is "added to or deducted from the western and northern ranges of sections or half-sections" (43 U.S.C. 751). The BLM manual (section 3-32) describes the result:

  • 25 regular sections are returned as 640 acres each, divided into aliquot parts.
  • Sections along the north and west lines, other than section 6, have 480 acres of aliquot parts plus four lots of "40 acres plus or minus the excess or deficiency."
  • Section 6, the northwest corner, has 360 acres of aliquot parts plus seven lots.

Those lots are what most people call government lots. BLM's Specifications define a lot as a part of a section that is not an aliquot part, "generally designated by a numerical value, e.g., lot 2," and say the term government lot is common outside the federal government.

Water creates lots too. Where a section meets a lake or river that was meandered, the subdivision lines stop at the meander line (BLM manual section 3-107), and the irregular pieces along it are platted as lots (section 3-105). A section cut short by "the meander line, reservation, or other boundary" is a fractional section (section 1-29).

What the records show for one real township

We queried BLM's national PLSS dataset on November 12, 2026 for Township 10 North, Range 6 East of the Sixth Principal Meridian, which takes in part of Lincoln, Nebraska. The dataset lists a record acreage for each quarter-quarter and lot:

  • Section 14 (interior): sixteen 40-acre quarter-quarters, 640.00 acres.
  • Section 2 (north row): twelve 40-acre quarter-quarters plus four lots of 35.93, 35.95, 35.97 and 35.99 acres, 623.84 acres.
  • Section 6 (northwest corner): nine 40-acre quarter-quarters plus seven lots from 34.18 to 38.89 acres, 612.06 acres.

Across the township, the dataset lists 47 lots, all in sections 1 through 7, 18, 19, 30 and 31, from 33.80 to 39.50 acres. That is the pattern the manual describes. Every lot in this township is recorded at less than 40 acres, so a buyer of one is not buying a full quarter-quarter.

BLM's metadata warns that the dataset is "neither legal documents nor land surveys, and must not be used as such," and it lists these lots without their numbers. The official record is the township plat and field notes; GLO Records says the field notes "contain the official acreage to be used in the legal description of Federal interest lands." In Cragin v. Powell (1888), the Supreme Court held that when land is granted according to an official survey plat, the plat "becomes as much a part of the grant or deed" as if its details were written into it. And 43 U.S.C. 752 says a returned acreage "shall be held and considered as containing the exact quantity expressed in such return." That is a rule about the original federal survey, not a measurement of the ground today; a modern survey can find a different area. Our guide to deeded acres vs. GIS acres covers what to do when the figures disagree.

Section township range lookup: how to find a property's section

These are free public sources, checked November 12, 2026. Start with the paperwork, then confirm on a map.

  1. Read the deed or tax record. A PLSS description names the section, township, range and meridian. County records often compress it. Deschutes County, Oregon, explains its tax map numbers this way: for 171232AC, "the Township=17, the Range=12, the Section=32, the Quarter=A, and the Sixteenth=C." Oregon's statewide ORMAP viewer lets you "view all the taxlots in the State of Oregon and download PDF copies of the assessors maps."
  2. Find the location on BLM's grid. BLM publishes the PLSS as a map service with township, section and subdivision layers. The Arizona State Library's PLSS guide links a viewer for that layer that opens without signing in. Search an address or zoom in. Townships appear first, then sections, then the smallest subdivisions.
  3. Pull the original plat if you need lot sizes. GLO Records keys survey records to "state, county, meridian, township/range," and each survey links to its plat and field notes. That is where a lot's original acreage is recorded.

A worked lookup

We ran step 2 on the Nebraska State Capitol, 1445 K Street, Lincoln. The Census Bureau geocoder placed the address at 40.80913 N, 96.69936 W. BLM's PLSS data returned the SW 1/4 of the NW 1/4 of Section 25, Township 10 North, Range 6 East, Sixth Principal Meridian.

The arithmetic agrees. The BLM manual's Table 3-1 puts the Sixth Principal Meridian's initial point at 40°00'07.1" N, 97°22'09.1" W. By our calculation on the WGS84 ellipsoid, the Capitol is about 55.7 miles north and 35.1 miles east of it. Nominally, T10N runs 54 to 60 miles north and R6E 30 to 36 miles east. Section 25, at the east end of the fifth row, covers 55 to 56 miles north and 35 to 36 east, and its SW 1/4 of the NW 1/4 covers 55.5 to 55.75 north and 35 to 35.25 east. The Capitol falls inside.

A lookup tells you where a point falls on the grid. It does not tell you how the deed describes the parcel. BLM's Specifications note that parcels "may be described by lot and block numbers of a city or townsite subdivision" on a recorded plat, and land in PLSS states is no exception.

Township and range vs. metes and bounds vs. lot and block

BLM's Public Land Statistics 2024 names 30 "public land states": Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. BLM's Specifications say the rectangular survey was extended over that area.

BLM's Specifications describe three types of land description and say many descriptions combine two or more:

  • Township and range names a square, or a lot, on the federal grid.
  • Lot and block names a lot on a recorded subdivision plat, such as "Lot 2, Block R," with the plat's name and recording reference.
  • Metes and bounds traces a boundary by its bearings, distances and neighbors. In PLSS states it can use a section corner as its known starting point and describes a tract whose lines do not follow aliquot lines.

Not all land in the 30 states sits on the grid. The BLM manual (section 1-13) separates the public lands from "private land claims," such as grants from the Spanish Crown or the Mexican government. Subdivision lines inside a section stop at a claim's boundary (section 3-107). The other 20 states are outside BLM's list. Our metes and bounds guide covers how land there is usually described.

Township and range when you are buying land

For a land buyer, the PLSS description decides which land you are buying and how many acres the price assumes. Check it before you make an offer, not at closing.

Where the description appears

  • The vesting deed. This is the deed that gave the seller title. Its description is usually the starting point for yours. Older deeds in the chain may describe the land differently.
  • The title commitment. On the 2021 ALTA commitment form, Item 5 of Schedule A reads "The Land is described as follows:" That is the land the policy will insure. Our title commitment guide covers the rest of the form.
  • The survey. In its explanation of PLSS surveying in the Pacific Northwest, an Oregon State University Extension guide for woodland owners says that when parcels "deviate in shape from the usual subdivisions," a licensed surveyor "must tie the property lines into previously established section corners or quarter-corners." Our boundary survey guide explains how to read the result.
  • The county record. The assessor's legal description field, parcel map and acreage. Sacramento County says its assessor maps "are NOT surveys" and are prepared for assessment purposes. Treat them as an index to the deed.

What to check before an offer

  1. Match the deed and Schedule A word for word. Check the meridian, township, range, section, every aliquot call, every lot number, every "and" and every exception.
  2. Do the arithmetic. Add up the aliquot parts and subtract the exceptions. Compare the total with the acreage in the listing, the deed and the county record.
  3. Check for government lots. If the land is in a township's north row or west column, or borders meandered water such as a lake or river, check whether the description includes government lots; those sections also contain regular aliquot parts. Take each lot's acreage from the plat rather than assuming 40 acres.
  4. Put it on the map. Open the county parcel map and the BLM PLSS layer together. The parcel should sit in the section and quarter-quarter the deed names.
  5. Read the exceptions against the map. Road rights-of-way, earlier sales and "except the West 330 feet" clauses may or may not appear in the county's outline.
  6. Write down every difference and send it to the surveyor and the title company with the deed.

What a mismatch means

  • A different section or quarter-quarter. The county may have mapped the parcel in the wrong place, the deed may have a typo, or you may have the wrong parcel. Swapping "NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4" for "SW 1/4 of the NE 1/4" names a different 40 acres. Desk research cannot tell you which record is wrong; the title company and surveyor can.
  • An acreage gap. Government lots, exceptions, road dedications and new survey measurements all change acreage. In the Nebraska township above, a north-row "forty" in Section 2 is a lot of under 36 acres. If the price is per acre, settle which figure sets it.
  • A lot number. BLM's Specifications note that "lot" also names parcels in recorded subdivisions. A lot number followed by a section, township and range usually indicates a government lot; confirm it on the original survey plat. A subdivision name, block or recording reference points toward a recorded subdivision plat.
  • A township name instead of a number. A name such as "Union Township" is a civil township; "Township 10 North" is a survey township. They may not share boundaries.

Pillar's property search shows a parcel's county record on a map, including acreage and the legal description when the county provides one. That is the county side of the comparison; the deed, the plat and the survey are the others.

Quick answers

What does T3N R2W mean? Township 3 North, Range 2 West: the third row north of the baseline and the second column west of the principal meridian. Read it with the meridian the description names.

How many acres are in a section? About 640, 1 mile on each side. A quarter section is about 160 acres and a quarter-quarter about 40. Sections along a township's north and west lines often differ.

How many sections are in a township? 36, numbered from the northeast corner back and forth by row. A typical township is about 23,040 acres.

How do I find the township and range of my property? Check the deed, tax bill or assessor's record, then confirm the location on the BLM PLSS map layer or a county map that shows section lines.

What is a government lot? A numbered part of a section that is not an aliquot part, usually along a township's north or west line or along water. Its acreage comes from the survey plat, not the nominal 40.

Is a survey township the same as a civil township? No. A survey township is a square on the PLSS grid. A civil township is a unit of local government whose boundaries may not follow the survey lines.

Do all states use township and range? No. BLM lists 30 public land states. The original 13 states and several others, including Texas, are not on that list.