Description: BackgroundPLSS (from wikipedia)The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method used historically over the largest fraction of the United States to survey and spatially identify land parcels before designation of eventual ownership, particularly for rural, wild or undeveloped land. It is sometimes referred to as the rectangular survey system (although non rectangular methods such as meandering can also be used).RanchosThe Spanish and, later, Mexican governments encouraged settlement of territory now known as California by the establishment of large land grants called ranchos, from which the English word ranch is derived. Land-grant titles (concessions) were government-issued, permanent, unencumbered property-ownership rights to land called ranchos.Why this dataset?This dataset was created in order to integrate the boundaries from two different datasets – a Rancho Boundary file from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and a parcel-accurate Township Range Section file created by the LA County Department of Public Works. There are many sources of this data out there, but the rancho are holes in the PLSS datasets and the TRS is a hole in the rancho files. This combines both of those.Method of conflationThese two datasets were combined, and any holes and overlaps were conflated to match the Rancho boundaries that were created by BLM. When there were questions I used the USGS topographic quad sheets to verify numbering and naming.
Copyright Text: Los Angeles County Public Works, Mapping & GIS Services (mapping@dpw.lacounty.gov)
