The right to subsoil (also a narrower concept of the right to minerals) is the right to dispose of the subsoil of the Earth, or, in a narrow sense, the right to extract minerals. Various legal systems interpret the right to subsoil in different ways: for example, Roman law linked subsoil rights with ownership of a land plot, while German law left subsoil ownership to the state. This discord is associated with objective reasons [1]:

the scale of profitable economic activity on land and underground usually differs significantly, the boundaries of deposits do not coincide with the boundaries of land ownership. Moreover, the nature of mining usually requires not ownership of the area within certain boundaries to a certain depth, but exclusive rights to the deposit;
Subsoil rights in most countries have a long history and have evolved through the interaction of mining companies, land owners and the judicial system.

The legal regimes for coal, oil and gas within one country are often different from those for other minerals.