What system divides public domain lands in the United States into 6-mile square townships and subdivided into sections?

• A. Public Land Survey System
• B. Sector Reference System
• C. Cartesian coordinate system
• D. Coordinate system

Answer: (A)

The Public Land Survey System is the framework used to organize public lands in the United States into a regular grid. It creates townships that are six miles on each side, forming 6-by-6 mile squares. Each of those townships is further subdivided into 36 sections, with each section being one mile on each side (1 square mile, or 640 acres). The grid is laid out using principal meridians and baselines, which run north–south and east–west to define the location of every township and range. This system was designed to simplify land description, sale, and ownership records across much of the country’s western expansion. The other choices don’t describe this land-description framework: a Cartesian coordinate system is a math tool for plotting points on a plane, while a general coordinate system or a nonstandard “sector reference” system isn’t the established method used for dividing public lands into townships and sections.