PGC PLSS National Land Grid

Land Grid, as it is commonly called, but more formally referred to as Public Land Survey System data (PLSS), is the fabric of mapping projects in the energy industry. PGC National Land Grid provides coverage for all 30 states in the U.S. that utilize a PLSS system.

In addition, PGC National Land Grid can be customized to include similar land data coverage in Texas, and also the popular Marcellus Shale and eastern states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

PGC prides itself on providing a cost-effective, highest quality 1:24,000 scale dataset that is updated and maintained to be consistent with changes in the industry. PGC’s National Land Grid has surpassed the comptition to become the premier product in the industry. We’re recognized by many companies as the data provider of choice. Customers enjoy our versatile formats and our flexibility in customizing the data for their uses and geographical areas.

Experience has shown us that professionals who have interest in using PLSS data usually ask a few common questions in determining how to go about acquiring the data:

How does your “land grid” data differ from other vendors?

 Very few vendors provide a uniform nationwide land grid. Most have been in business for decades and have larger organizations, and thus need to charge more for the product. They never considered that the paper maps they digitized years ago would be replaced by newer digital PLSS sources that have become more accurate through the use of GPS and modern surveying techniques. It has been counter-productive for these vendors to try and incorporate new and current sources of information, while attempting not to abandon their older product and the associated higher costs.

To illustrate an example, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages land throughout the U.S. and has the largest public oil and gas leasing program that exists. The BLM has created industry-standard PLSS and the legal descriptions that define the oil and gas leases, which fit

precisely within the BLM PLSS dataset and its subsequent Lots, Tracts, and Aliquots. It is not possible to retrofit the leases to an older version of the PLSS. While a different vendor may even concede this and attempt to incorporate this new data in an effort to “update” their data, they are still charging customers the same old high prices. In addition, oil and gas well locations are described according to the new PLSS sources and even old wells have had new footage calls assigned. One can easily verify this by simply negating the footage call and use the official latitude/longitude of the well point in conjunction with aerial photography.

At PGC, we welcome the opportunity for you to send us an area from another vendor and we’ll show you a live demo comparison of the datasets.

Can’t I download PLSS data from the Internet and why would I purchase yours?

First, one cannot acquire a complete nationwide 1:24,000 PLSS on the Internet, or from a public agency for that matter. We know this firsthand because we are always keeping abreast of new sources of information so that our data is the most up to date.

Second, much of the downloadable data involves very tedious, time-intensive data manipulation to edit geometry and to standardize attributes. For example, we can show a live demo to you of an apples-to-apples comparison of the free GCDB BLM Land Grid and our cleaned, enhanced version, and you’ll immediately see the difference.

In some cases there is so much data available you don’t know which to use. For example, in one state we found 5 different sources of 1:24,000 PLSS on the Internet. Using PGC, you’ll have the assurance of knowing that we’ve not only seen the 5 sources, but that we already evaluated them to determine if they are worthy of integrating into PGC National Land Grid. Another worthwhile point is that with PGC National Land Grid is standardized. The data structure, attributes, and topology is consistent across the entire dataset and we’ve created a special label attribute for every polygon.

Take into account our complete nationwide coverage, our data cleaning and enhancement, thorough research performed, standardization of the dataset, low costs, it will be apparent PGC National Land Grid is the solution.

PGC also can provide Federal Lots/Tracts and Sub-Survey data if your work requires more detail. Additionally, PGC has available the Canadian Land Grid for all of the Provinces of Canada.

PGC National Land Grid can be formatted for specific use in GeoGraphix, Petra, Kingdom SMT, Surfer, AutoCad, RockWorks, ESRI, MapInfo, and Google Earth.. 

Call for specific prices of Counties and/or States to  be delivered customized for your specific software application.  Also, we offer a bundled Nationwide PLSS Land Grid Solution as GIS ready Shape Files.

Louisiana Land Grid PLSS, Alabama Land Grid PLSS, Mississippi Land Grid PLSS, Florida Land Grid PLSS, Arkansas Land Grid PLSS, Missouri Land Grid PLSS, Ohio Land Grid PLSS, Indiana Land Grid PLSS, Michigan Land Grid PLSS, Illinois Land Grid PLSS, Wisconsin Land Grid PLSS, Minnesota Land Grid PLSS, Iowa Land Grid PLSS, Oklahoma Land Grid PLSS, Kansas Land Grid PLSS, Nebraska Land Grid PLSS, North Dakota Land Grid PLSS,  South Dakota Land Grid PLSS, Montana Land Grid PLSS, Idaho Land Grid PLSS, Wyoming Land Grid PLSS, Colorado Land Grid PLSS, New Mexico Land Grid PLSS, Arizona Land Grid PLSS, Utah Land Grid PLSS, Nevada Land Grid PLSS, California Land Grid PLSS, Oregon Land Grid PLSS, Washington Land Grid PLSS.