We give a brief literature review of the isoperimetric problem and discuss its relationship with the Cheeger constant of Riemannian n-manifolds. For some noncompact, finite area 2-manifolds, we prove the existence and regularity of subsets whose isoperimetric ratio is equal to the Cheeger constant. To do this, we use results of Hass-Morgan for the isoperimetric problem of these manifolds. We also give an example of a finite area 2-manifold where no such subset exists. Using work of Adams-Morgan, we classify all such subsets of geometrically finite, finite area hyperbolic surfaces where such subsets always exist. From this, we provide an algorithm for finding these sets given information about the topology, length spectrum, and distances between the simple closed geodesics of the surface. Finding such a subset allows one to directly compute the Cheeger constant of the surface. As an application of this work suggested by Agol, we give a test for Selberg's eigenvalue conjecture. We do this by comparing a quantitative improvement of Buser's inequality resulting from works of both Agol and the author to an upper bound on the Cheeger constant of these surfaces, the latter given by Brooks-Zuk. As expected, our test does not contradict Selberg's conjecture.where D ⊂ M is a smooth n-submanifold with boundary and 0We describe the procedure of using results about the isoperimetric problem on M in order to prove the existence and regularity of subsetsWe refer to ∂A and A as (n−1)and n-dimensional Cheeger minimizers respectively.Buser introduced this procedure when he proved that Cheeger minimizers exist for all compact Riemannian manifolds [11, Remark 3.3, Lemma 3.4]. Since Buser's explanation of this idea was very brief, we elaborate on it in the setting of compact Riemannian manifolds in Section 3. We also discuss criteria for when these results extend to noncompact, finite volume surfaces.