ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Public Land Survey System

Okay kiddo, let me explain what the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is.

Imagine you are playing a game of treasure hunt with your friends. To find the treasure, you need to know the exact location of it, right? To help you find it, you might use a map with lines and grids on it. The PLSS is like a big map for the United States, and it helps people know exactly where a piece of public land is located.

A long time ago, when the West was first settled, the government needed a way to divide the land in a fair and organized way. So, they came up with this system. The PLSS divides public lands into squares, called townships, and those townships are divided into even smaller squares, called sections. Each section is one square mile, or 640 acres.

Now, let's say you want to find a specific piece of land in Montana. By looking at the PLSS, we can tell you that it's located in a township called T23N, R15W, and that it's in Section 8.

To sum it up, the Public Land Survey System is a big map that helps people find public land by dividing it into squares called townships and sections. It's like a treasure map for land!