Each township is then broken down into 36 square mile sections, meaning the township is six sections wide by six sections tall. Section count begins in the northeast corner of the townships and uses the boustrophedon method, snaking back and forth through the township.

Within each section there are quarter sections and even sixteenths. These break up the sections into smaller pieces of land, 160 acres (quarter) and 40 acres (sixteenth) for subdividing the land into regular units. Examples of quarters would be NE quarter, NW quarter and the sixteenths follow as NE quarter of the NW quarter.