This system was designed to describe essentially agricultural land areas in an understandable and detailed manner down to ten acres (4 ha) in size.

The Dominion Land Survey System laid out nearly uniform land parcels that can be precisely described and located in the settled areas of the four western provinces.

Southwest Quarter of Section 24, Township 38, Range 20, West of the 5th Meridian. Legal land descriptions are written as in the following example: A section can be further divided into quarters (NE, NW, SE, SW) of 160 acres each or into 16 legal subdivisions (LSDs). These townships are further divided into 36 sections, each measuring one mile by one mile (one square mile). 'Township' also describes the six mile by six mile square formed when the range and township lines intersect. The southern Alberta border with Montana is township 1, up to the northern border with the Northwest Territories at township 126. Townships are also six miles wide and are numbered from south to north. They are numbered consecutively from east to west, beginning west of the meridian. Between meridians are a series of columns, each six miles wide, called ranges.

The ATS designates land as being west of the 4th Meridian (110 degrees west longitude), 5th Meridian (114 degrees west longitude) or 6th Meridian (118 degrees west longitude). The ATS is a grid network dividing the province into equal-sized square parcels of land, for purposes of administering legal land title. The Alberta Township System (ATS) is a variant of the Dominion Land Survey (DLS) system as implemented in Canada.

How to read township and range system