Why Texas is different
Texas kept its public land when it joined the United States in 1845. The federal government never owned it, so the federal survey never applied.
Instead, Texas land was granted in pieces over two centuries: by Spain, by Mexico, by the Republic of Texas, and by the State. Each grant was surveyed on its own. Much of West Texas was granted to railroads in large blocks of 640-acre sections, with alternate sections kept by the State for its school fund.
Each original survey has an abstract number, assigned county by county by the Texas General Land Office.
Watch for: some railroad blocks in West Texas are split into townships, like "T-4-S." That is a numbering inside the railroad block. It has no range and no meridian, and it is not a PLSS township.
The parts of a Texas description
A West Texas description names the tract the way the original surveyors laid it out. Click each part of the description on the right.
Older descriptions elsewhere in Texas often skip the blocks and sections. They name a survey and abstract, such as "the John Smith Survey, Abstract 123," then describe the tract by metes and bounds.
The Midland County map
This is the original survey map of Midland County, in the Permian Basin. Most of it is Texas and Pacific Railway blocks, numbered 36 to 42, split into townships and then into 640-acre sections.
To find a tract, find the block and township first, then the section inside it. Section numbering follows each block's own survey plat, so check the plat instead of assuming an order.
Some sections show more than one abstract number, because parts of the section were abstracted separately. The irregular tracts without block numbers are individual surveys. The railroad blocks are also turned slightly off true north, as they were laid out on the ground.
Source: Railroad Commission of Texas, Original Texas Land Survey layer, digitized from Texas General Land Office county maps. Not a legal survey.
Old Spanish units
Older Texas grants and field notes use Spanish units. You will see them in early surveys and in descriptions copied forward from them.
Vara: 33⅓ inches, so 1 vara = 2.7778 feet. 36 varas = 100 feet.
Labor: 1,000 × 1,000 varas, about 177.1 acres. Historically used for farmland.
League: 5,000 × 5,000 varas, or 25 labors, about 4,428.4 acres. Historically used for grazing land.
A 640-acre section is 1,900.8 varas on a side.
| 1 labor | 177.14 acres |
| 1 league (25 labors) | 4,428.40 acres |
| 1 section | 640.00 acres |
Where to find Texas records
- Texas General Land Office Land Grant Database: original grants and patents, searchable by county, abstract number, grantee, and patentee.
- Texas General Land Office GIS maps and data: survey maps and state land data.
- Railroad Commission of Texas GIS Viewer: wells and the original survey grid, statewide.
- Texas Geographic Information Office data hub: downloadable statewide map data.
- County clerk: deeds, leases, and other recorded documents in the county where the land is.