History of Land Surveys

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Ever since ancient man decided that certain parcel would belong to one tribe and another parcel to another, there's been a need for land surveys. As the technology and method of mediation have definitely become more sophisticated through the years, 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.

One of the first types of surveying by mathematical means was by the Egyptians. THE FANTASTIC Pyramid at Giza, build around 2700 BC, demonstrates their prowess and understanding of surveying techniques. Once the Nile overflowed its banks and flooded the plains, the ancient Egyptians redrew boundary lines through the use of basic geometry. Also, an Egyptian Land register existed as early as 3000 BC. Though miles ahead of other civilizations of their time in regards to their surveying and irrigation techniques, nowadays we prefer a much more scientific method of marking boundaries rather than declaring "I swear by the fantastic god that is in heaven that the proper boundary stone has been set up," when the boundary stones were replaced after the flooding waters of the Nile had receded.

Building upon the example of the Egyptians, the Romans went one step further and established Land Surveyor as an official position within the Roman Empire. These were called agrimensores, collectively known as Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum plus they performed various tasks throughout the Empire. These were remarkably thorough and precise within their methodology; they would 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 already been found which date as far back as the initial century AD, plus some furrows developed by them remain 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, how much land they owned, the quality 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. Land Surveyors Malvern Worcestershire were not designed to scale and didn't accurately show locations.

It should not surprise one to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte was thinking about proper surveying. When you're trying to conquer the known world, it helps to have accurate maps. In 1908 he founded the cadastre, a thorough register of the house of a county, including ownership details, location as precisely as you possibly can, and as much information regarding the value and usage of the land. In addition, it included maps drawn to scale both at 1:2500 and 1:1250. Using the cadastre spread quickly, but ran into problems in the more sparsely populated and disputed areas, as it would have to be updated each 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 where we measure and record our boundaries and land.

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