History of Land Surveys

Ever since ancient man decided that one parcel would participate in one tribe and another parcel to another, there has been a dependence on land surveys. As the technology and means of mediation have definitely are more sophisticated over time, the basic have to define our boundaries remains. Every major civilization in the annals of the world utilized land surveying, some with more sophisticated and accurate results than others.

Among the first types of surveying by mathematical means was by the Egyptians. The Great Pyramid at Giza, build around 2700 BC, demonstrates their prowess and understanding of surveying techniques. When https://buildingsurveyslancashire.co.uk/best-building-surveyors-lancashire/ overflowed its banks and flooded the plains, the ancient Egyptians redrew boundary lines by using basic geometry. Also, an Egyptian Land register existed as soon as 3000 BC. Though miles ahead of other civilizations of their time in regards to their surveying and irrigation techniques, nowadays we prefer a more scientific approach to marking boundaries instead of declaring "I swear by the great god that's in heaven that the right boundary stone has been set up," once the boundary stones were replaced following the flooding waters of the Nile had receded.

Building upon the exemplory case of the Egyptians, the Romans went one step further and established Land Surveyor as an official position within the Roman Empire. They were called agrimensores, collectively referred to as Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum plus they performed various tasks through the entire Empire. These were remarkably thorough and precise within their methodology; they might create straight lines and right angles using simple tools. Once the lines were measured, they might create a furrow or a shallow ditch to represent the lines. Texts have been found which date dating back to the first century AD, and some furrows created by them still exist today.

In England in 1086, William the Conqueror wrote the Domesday Book, which covered all of England and contained the names of the land owners, the quantity of land they owned, the caliber of said land, and specific information about each area's resources and peoples. As the breadth of information was impressive for the time, the technical surveying skills were lacking. The maps were not designed to scale and did not accurately show locations.

It should not surprise one to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte was thinking about proper surveying. When you're attempting to conquer the known world, it helps to have accurate maps. In 1908 he founded the cadastre, a comprehensive register of the property of a county, including ownership details, location as precisely as possible, and as much information about the value and usage of the land. In addition, it included maps drawn to scale both at 1:2500 and 1:1250. The usage of the cadastre spread quickly, but ran into problems in the more sparsely populated and disputed areas, since it would have to be updated each and every time anything changed. Napoleon felt that the establishment of the cadastre will be his greatest accomplishment in civil law.

Land surveying has even more applications today than in those of our predecessors. As our method of recording and preserving our history becomes more sophisticated, so do the means by which we measure and record our boundaries and land.