# How Land Is Surveyed in California: Reading a Legal Description > California land surveys explained for mineral owners: Three grids, and large named tracts that predate all of them. What the legal description on your deed or division order actually means, and where to look the records up free. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/land-survey/california/ Publisher: Berlin Royalties, a veteran-owned oil and gas mineral and royalty buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, buying for its own account since 2014. Call or text 918-984-1645. License: free to quote and cite with attribution to Berlin Royalties and a link to the source URL. Land Surveys ยท California ## How land is surveyed in California 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. [Ask a Landman, Free](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) [What Are My Minerals Worth?](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) **California uses plss on three meridians, plus mexican era ranchos.** Three grids, and large named tracts that predate all of them. ## The principal meridians 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. - **Humboldt Meridian** (1853). The northwest corner of the state. - **Mount Diablo Meridian** (1851). Most of northern California, all of central California and part of southern California. It also governs Nevada. - **San Bernardino Meridian** (1852). The southern portion of the state. BLM describes the coverage of these three qualitatively rather than by county line, so we do not draw one here either. ## The ranchos 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. ## Reading a California township plat 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. ## What we see go wrong in California 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. ## Where to look it up, free - [BLM General Land Office Records](https://glorecords.blm.gov). Includes California private land claim patents - [California State Library land grants research guide](https://www.library.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/California_land_grants_research_guide.pdf). How to trace a rancho Deeds are with the county recorders. ### Send us the description and we will read it back to you. 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](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) [Get a Free Valuation](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) ## Related - [How land is surveyed in every state we work in](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/land-survey/) - [The interactive section, township and range map](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/section-township-range-map/) - [California mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/california/) and the [California owner's guide](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/guide/california/) - [How to find out if you own mineral rights](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/find-out-if-you-own-mineral-rights/) - [Depth severance](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/depth-severance/) and [the Duhig rule](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/duhig-rule-overconveyance/) - [The mineral glossary](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/glossary/) Compiled 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.