This kind of survey uses running descriptions with measures of angles and distances.  Starting at a Point Of Beginning (POB) the description runs counter clockwise or clockwise around the perimeter using directions or bearings and distances, or calls for bounds.  The description leads back to the POB and usually includes an area in square feet or acres.  A metes and bounds description often includes reference to a survey plat. (See the metes and bounds land description in the Land Descriptions section below).

Metes and bounds surveys can be part of the PLSS when they are surveyed within a PLSS state, and define irregular areas of land that do not conform with the rectangular system.  The metes and bounds are connected to a regular corner of the rectangular survey.

A meander line is the traverse run at the line of mean high water for rivers and lakes and at the line of mean high tide for tidal waters, of a permanent natural body of water.  In original surveys (the first cadastral survey of the federal land), meander lines are not run as boundary lines.  They are run to generally define the sinuosities of the bank or shore line and for determining the quantity of land in the fractional sections remaining after segregation of the water area.

A meandered river:

Lots
Lots, sometimes referred to as government lots, are regular or irregularly shaped parcels of land within a section not described as aliquot parts, with acreage varying from those of regular (aliquot) subdivisions.  Government lots are often parcels along the north and west boundaries of a township – lots which might be thought of as the remainder areas which result from convergence and allowable error in the survey.  Government lots also occur when meanderable bodies of water or metes and bounds claims intrude on the regular section rectangular subdivisions.