Ever since ancient man decided that one piece of land would belong to one tribe and another parcel to another, there's been a need for land surveys. While the technology and method of mediation have definitely become more sophisticated through the years, the basic need to define our boundaries remains. Every major civilization in the history of the world utilized land surveying, some with more sophisticated and accurate results than others.
Among the first examples of surveying by mathematical means was by the Egyptians. THE FANTASTIC Pyramid at Giza, build around 2700 BC, demonstrates their prowess and knowledge of surveying techniques. When 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 soon as 3000 BC. Though miles before other civilizations of their time when it comes to their surveying and irrigation techniques, nowadays we prefer a much more scientific method of marking boundaries instead of declaring "I swear by the fantastic god that's in heaven that the right boundary stone has been create," once 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 being an official position within the Roman Empire. They were called agrimensores, collectively referred to as Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum plus they performed various tasks throughout the Empire. These were remarkably thorough and precise in their methodology; they might create straight lines and right angles using simple tools. After the lines were measured, they might create a furrow or perhaps a shallow ditch to represent the lines. Texts have been found which date as far back as the initial century AD, and some furrows created by them still exist today.
In England in 1086, William the Conqueror wrote the Domesday Book, which covered most of England and contained the names of the land owners, the amount of land they owned, the quality of said land, and specific information regarding each area's resources and peoples. While the breadth of information was impressive for enough time, the technical surveying skills were lacking. The maps weren't designed to scale and didn't accurately show locations.
It should not surprise anyone to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte was thinking about proper surveying. If Daylight Analysis London are trying to conquer the known world, it helps to possess accurate maps. In 1908 he founded the cadastre, a thorough register of the property of a county, which included ownership details, location as precisely as you possibly can, and as much information about the value and using the land. In addition, it included maps attracted 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, since 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.