PLSS Acronyms and Abbreviations

BLM- Bureau of Land Management: A division of the Department of Interior that includes Cadastral Survey.

CADNSDI- Cadastral National Spatial Data Infrastructure

DOI- Department of Interior

FGDC- Federal Geographic Data Committee: An organization within the US Geologic Survey, which is part of the Department of Interior, charged with coordinating the development of the NSDI.

GCDB- Geographic Coordinate Database: A program within Cadastral Survey to develop and maintain coordinate values on corners of the PLSS to support mapping and GIS applications.

GMM- GCDB Measurement Management: A program developed by Cadastral survey in the 1990’s to replace PCCS and introduce full least squares analysis of PLSS measurements.

LLD- Legal Land Description: A database in the BLM that provides land descriptions for transactions.

NSDI- National Spatial Data Infrastructure: The goal of NSDI is to reduce duplication of effort among agencies, improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information, to make geographic data more accessible to the public, to increase the benefits of using available data, and to establish key partnerships with states, counties, cities, tribal nations, academia and the private sector to increase data availability.

PCCS- Public Land Survey System Coordinate Computational System: A software program developed by Bill Ball in the 1970’s to perform computations on the PLSS.

PLSS- Public Land Survey System: The system of measuring and inventorying land in thirty states.