Editing Public Land Survey System (section)

==History==
[[File:Map of territorial growth 1775.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Map of territorial growth, 1775]]
[[File:Northwest Territory locator map (1787).svg|thumb|right|200px|[[Northwest territory]]]]
[[File:Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey front.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Monument referencing the [[Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey|beginning point of the PLSS]]]]

Originally proposed by [[Thomas Jefferson]] to create a nation of "[[yeoman]] farmers",<ref name="nationalatlas.gov">{{cite web |author= Staff |date= May 29, 2012 |url= http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_plss.html |title= The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) |work= National Atlas of the United States |publisher= [[U.S. Department of the Interior]] |access-date= June 20, 2012 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120607063232/http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_plss.html |archive-date= June 7, 2012 }}</ref> the PLSS began shortly after the [[American Revolutionary War]], when the federal government became responsible for large areas of land west of the [[Thirteen Colonies|original thirteen states]]. The government wished both to distribute land to Revolutionary War soldiers in reward for their services and to sell land as a way of raising money for the nation. Before this could happen, the land needed to be surveyed.<ref name="nationalatlas.gov2">{{cite web |author= Staff |date= May 29, 2012 |url= http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_plss.html |title= The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) |work= National Atlas of the United States |publisher= [[U.S. Department of the Interior]] |access-date= Nov 25, 2012 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121016201152/http://www.nationalatlas.gov/articles/boundaries/a_plss.html |archive-date= October 16, 2012 }}</ref>

The Land Ordinance of 1785 marks the beginning of the Public Land Survey System. The [[Congress of the Confederation|Confederation Congress]] was deeply in debt following the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]]. With little power to tax, the federal government decided to use the sale of the Western Territories to pay off war debt. The PLSS has been expanded and slightly modified by Letters of Instruction and Manuals of Instruction, issued by the General Land Office and the Bureau of Land Management, and is still in use in most of the states west of [[Pennsylvania]], south to [[Florida]], [[Alabama]], and [[Mississippi]], west to the [[Pacific Ocean]], and north into the [[Arctic]] in [[Alaska]].

===Origins===
The original colonies (including their derivatives [[Maine]], [[Vermont]], [[Tennessee]], [[Kentucky]] and [[West Virginia]]) continued the [[Great Britain|British]] system of [[metes and bounds]]. This system describes property lines based on local markers and bounds drawn by humans, often based on topography. A typical, yet simple, description under this system might read "From the point on the north bank of Muddy Creek one mile above the junction of Muddy and Indian Creeks, north for 400 yards, then northwest to the large standing rock, west to the large oak tree, south to Muddy Creek, then down the center of the creek to the starting point."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Murphy |first=Connor |title=City Planning: How Citizens Can Take Control |publisher=WheatMark |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-62787-881-4 |location=Arizona}}</ref>

Particularly in [[New England]], this system was supplemented by drawing [[plat|town plats]]. The metes and bounds system was used to describe a town of a generally rectangular shape, {{convert|4|to|6|mi}} on a side. Within this boundary, a map or plat was maintained that showed all the individual lots or properties.

There are some difficulties with this system:
*Irregular shapes for properties make for much more complex descriptions.
*Over time, these descriptions become problematic as trees die or streams move by erosion.
*It was not useful for the large, newly surveyed tracts of land being opened in the west, which were being sold sight unseen to investors.

In the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognizing the United States, Britain also recognized American rights to the land south of the [[Great Lakes]] and west to the [[Mississippi River]]. The Continental Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 and then the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to control the survey, sale, and settling of the new lands. The original 13 colonies donated their western lands to the new union, for the purpose of giving land for new states. These include the lands that formed the Northwest Territory, Kentucky, Tennessee, [[Alabama]], and [[Mississippi]]. The state that gave up the most was [[Virginia]], whose original claim included most of the Northwest Territory and Kentucky. Some of the western land was claimed by more than one state, especially in the northwest, where parts were claimed by Virginia, Pennsylvania, and [[Connecticut]], all three of which had claimed lands all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

===Application===
The first surveys under the new rectangular system were in eastern Ohio in an area called the Seven Ranges. The [[Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey]] is at a point on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border between [[East Liverpool, Ohio]], and [[Ohioville, Pennsylvania]], on private property. A [[National Historic Landmark]] marker commemorating the site lies on the side of a state highway, exactly {{convert|1112|ft}} to the north of the point.<ref>{{cite sign |title= Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey Pennsylvania |url= http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beginning_Point_of_the_U.S._Public_Land_Survey_Pennsylvania.jpg |medium= Historical monument |location= East Liverpool, OH |publisher= East Liverpool Historical Society |access-date= June 20, 2012 |archive-date= May 24, 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150524142023/http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beginning_Point_of_the_U.S._Public_Land_Survey_Pennsylvania.jpg |url-status= live }}</ref>

[[File:Crops Kansas AST 20010624.jpg|thumb|left|Farmland in [[Kansas]] divided into quarter [[Section (United States land surveying)|sections]]]]

Ohio was surveyed in several major subdivisions, collectively described as the [[Ohio Lands]], each with its own [[meridian (geography)|meridian]] and [[baseline (surveying)|baseline]]. The early surveying, particularly in Ohio, was performed with more speed than care, with the result that many of the oldest townships and sections vary considerably from their prescribed shape and area. Proceeding westward, accuracy became more of a consideration than rapid sale, and the system was simplified by establishing one major north–south line ([[principal meridian]]) and one east–west (base) line that control descriptions for an entire state or more. For example, a single [[Willamette Meridian]] serves both [[Oregon]] and [[Washington (state)|Washington]]. County lines frequently follow the survey, so there are many rectangular counties in the [[Midwestern United States|Midwest]] and the [[Western United States|West]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}