Sections, long lots and confirmed claims, all on the same plat. Here is what the legal description on your deed, lease or division order is actually telling you, and where to check it for free.
Louisiana uses mixed: plss, arpent long lots and private claims. Sections, long lots and confirmed claims, all on the same plat.
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.
Louisiana descriptions frequently carry a land district as well. The State Land Office names six: Northwestern at Natchitoches, North of Red River at Monroe and Ouachita, Southwestern at Opelousas, Southeastern District West of the Mississippi River, Southeastern District East of the Mississippi River at New Orleans, and Greensburg.
The arpent is the French unit. A linear arpent is about 192 feet and a square arpent is about 0.85 acre. An 1874 Act of Congress confirming Louisiana Purchase territory titles equates 7,153.32 arpents to 6,085.29 acres, which is the best official equivalence on record. The 1716 French Crown edict allotted riverfront tracts of two to four arpents of frontage by 40 to 60 arpents deep, so that every family reached the river and the levee. Spanish authorities favored ranching and used sitios, varas and ligas instead, particularly across the southwestern prairies.
American surveyors platted the long lots and approved private claims first, then filled the remaining ground with regular sections. A township normally holds 36 sections. The Louisiana State Land Office states that Louisiana townships often contain over 100 sections of varying sizes, because the irregular claims and long lots are carried on the plat as additional numbered sections.
Louisiana's recording units are parishes, and deeds are recorded with the Parish Clerk of Court.
This is the most important note on any of these pages. In Louisiana a mineral interest severed from the surface is a mineral servitude, and under La. R.S. 31:27 a mineral servitude is extinguished by prescription resulting from nonuse for ten years. An out of state heir who inherits the minerals under 40 acres from a 1960s deed may own nothing at all if there was no qualifying use in any ten year window. Louisiana is not a state where a mineral deed runs forever on its own. Second and much smaller: a Louisiana description reading Section 47 is not a typographical error.
Deeds are with the Parish Clerks of Court.
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.