Origins of Land Surveying

· 2 min read
Origins of Land Surveying

The principles of land surveying date back almost so far as the idea of land ownership. Ever since ancient man determined that one piece of land would belong to one group, and another piece to another group, there was a need to mediate between land disputes.  Click here!  is where land surveying came in, although today surveys are also used for many other purposes.

Since that time, every major civilization in the history of the world has used some form of land surveying, although they have certainly become more sophisticated through the years both with changing laws and improved technologies. Today, GPS along with other technologies allow for a much more exact survey than was possible just a couple of short decades ago. Obviously, ancient maps and land surveys were even less accurate.

Among the first types of a land survey using mathematical means was in ancient Egypt. THE FANTASTIC Pyramid, built around 2700 BC at Giza, demonstrates Egyptians' understanding of surveying techniques. Ancient Egyptians also redrew boundary lines using basic geometry following the Nile River flooded the plains. An Egyptian land register existed as soon as 3000 BC, or five thousand years back, to record the owners of various bits of land and their locations. These early surveying efforts by the Egyptians were years before other civilizations, as was true in many other areas of Egyptian technology as well. These surveys were predicated on geometry and also simple declarations they believed these boundaries to be correct.

In the Roman Empire., the Romans actually established 'land surveyor' as an official position. They were called agrimensores. Texts describing their actions date back again to the first century AD. Thorough and precise, these were known for creating impeccably straight lines and right angles using simple tools. After measuring these lines, they would dig a shallow ditch to represent the lines. Amazingly,  https://www.dgsalt.org/members/parrotbrain3/activity/892240/  of these ditches still exist for this day.

In eleventh century England, William the Conqueror wrote his now-famous Domesday Book. This book, covering most of England, meticulously covered the names of most land owners, the product quality and level of this land, and information on individuals and resources in each area. Even though amount of information contained in this book was quite impressive, this is not a technical survey, and the maps weren't attracted to scale and were not very accurate.


Napoleon Bonaparte was the first to mandate a cadastre, in 1808. Sometimes, Napoleon even thought that the cadastre would be his greatest contribution to civil law. The cadastre is really a thorough register of the house in confirmed county. The information it contains includes ownership details, location (as precisely measured as possible given then-current technology), and as much information about the worthiness and usage of the land as was available. This cadastre included scale maps at both 1:2500 and 1:1250. Cadastre use spread quickly, and even it was the origin of today's cadastral surveys. However, it was difficult to produce a cadastre in rural areas or those where land was in dispute.

Today's surveys are a lot more accurate than those done in decades or centuries past because of sophisticated means for measuring and recording boundaries and land features. There are lots of more applications of land surveys than simply recording land ownership