Three grids, and large named tracts that predate all of them. Here is what the legal description on your deed, lease or division order is actually telling you, and where to check it for free.
California uses plss on three meridians, plus mexican era ranchos. Three grids, and large named tracts that predate all of them.
A principal meridian and its base line are the origin of a rectangular survey. Township and range numbers count outward from that origin, which means the same township and range numbers repeat under every meridian. The meridian is the part of the description that says which grid you are on.
BLM describes the coverage of these three qualitatively rather than by county line, so we do not draw one here either.
Spanish and Mexican era grants were adjudicated after the Land Act of 1851, and confirmed grants were patented as single named tracts. They are described by rancho name and by the confirmation survey, not by section, township and range, and the PLSS grid was surveyed around them.
On a BLM township plat, patented areas are outlined by patent lines with the patent number placed at the lower extremity of the patented area, and reservations appear as notations beneath the patent number. If nothing appears below the patent number, the United States reserved nothing.
That last point is the one worth carrying. On a California township plat, the absence of a notation under a patent number means there is no federal mineral reservation, and the presence of one is exactly where a severed federal mineral estate shows up. Separately, in rancho country a deed may describe land purely by rancho name and metes and bounds with no section call at all. That is normal and it is not a defective description.
Deeds are with the county recorders.
What it covers, how many net mineral acres it actually is, and whether anything is producing on it. Free, no obligation, and the answer does not change if you never sell anything to us. We do this every day and it usually takes us an hour.
Ask a Landman Get a Free ValuationCompiled from BLM, state land offices, state archives and statute, current as of 2026-08. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a licensed surveyor. Nothing here is a boundary opinion, and a description that matters to a transaction should be run by a title attorney or a licensed surveyor in the state where the land sits.