Throughout history the control of land has been the basis of power. Cadastral maps, records of property ownership, played an important role in the rise of modern Europe as tools for the consolidation and extension of land-based national power.

 
The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State, illustrated with 126 maps, traces the development and application of rural property mapping in Europe from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century. Beginning with a review of the roots of cadastral mapping in the Roman Empire, the authors concentrate on the use of cadastral maps in the Netherlands, France, England, the Nordic countries, the German lands, the territories of the Austrian Habsburgs, and the European colonies. During the sixteenth century government institutions began to use maps to secure economic and political bases; by the nineteenth century these maps had become tools for aggressive governmental control of land as tax bases, natural resources, and national territories. This work demonstrates how the seemingly neutral science of cartography became a political instrument for national
interests.

 

The manuscript of Cadastral Maps in the Service of the State was awarded the Kenneth Nebenzahl Prize in 1991.

List of Figures
Preface

1. Antiquity to Capitalism: Decline and Renaissance of Cadastral Mapping
1.1. The Cadastral Map in Antiquity
1.2. Private Estate Maps: The Precursors of State Cadasters
1.3. Cadastral Maps in the Service of the State

2. The Northern and Southern Netherlands
The Northern Netherlands
2.1. Dikes and Polders
2.2. State Revenue
2.3. The Hollandse Cadaster (1795-1811)
2.4. The French Cadaster (1811-13)
2.5. The Netherlands Cadaster (1813 onward)
The Southern Netherlands
2.6. Early Taxation Cadasters
2.7. The Duchies of Luxembourg and Limburg and the Limburg Kempen
2.8. The Nineteenth-Century Cadaster
2.9. The Cadastral Map in the Netherlands

3. The Nordic Countries
Sweden and Its Empire
3.1. Sweden: From Stormakt to Obscurity
3.2. The Formation of the Swedish Lantmäteriet
The Geometriska Jordeböckerna
3.4. Lantmäteriet, Property Boundary Maps, and Enclosure
3.5. Taxation Maps
3.6. Military and Technical Influences on Cadastral Mapping
3.7. The Duchy of Finland and the Swedish Colonies
Denmark and Its Colonies
3.8. The Danish Matrikel: The Land Register
3.9. The Special Landmaling: The Special Survey
3.10. The Surveying of the Jutland Alheden
3.11. Udskiftning: Land Reallocation and Enclosure
3.12. The Matrikel of 1844
3.13. Mapping, the Matrikel, and Ownership
3.14. Technical Considerations and Training
3.15. Sønderjylland: The Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg
3.16. Iceland, Greenland, and the Faeroe Islands
3.17. The Cadastral Map in Denmark
Norway
3.18. The Landskyld System, the Matrikkel, and Cadastral Mapping
3.19. Forest Maps
3.20. Property Dispute Maps and the Landmalingskonduktører
3.21. Enclosure
3.22. Maps of Crown and State Land
3.23. Statens Kartwerk (National Survey Board)
3.24. The Cadastral Map in Norway
3.25. The Cadastral Map in the Nordic Countries

4. Germany
4.1. Forerunners of State Cadastral Maps
4.2. Maps in the Management of State Forests
4.3. Internal Colonization and Land Reclamation
4.4. Agricultural Reform in Germany in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
4.5. Taxation in Germany
4.6. Taxation Cadasters of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
4.7. Taxation Cadasters of the Nineteenth Century
4.8. The Cadastral Map in Germany

5. The Austrian Habsburg Lands, with the Principality of Piedmont
5.1. Early Mapping: Estate and Boundary Maps
5.2. The Struggle for Tax Reform
5.3. Early State Taxation Cadasters
5.4. The Milanese Censimento: The First Surveyed and Mapped Cadaster
5.5. The Influence of the Milanese Cadaster: Tuscany, Piedmont, and Spain
5.6. The Theresian Cadaster
5.7. The Josephine Cadaster
5.8. The Josephinische Landesaufnahme
5.9. The Stabile, or Franciscan, Cadaster
5.10. Later State Surveys
5.11. The Cadastral Map in Austria
6. France
6.1. Mapping Individual Properties and Communes
6.2. Forest Maps
6.3. Taxation "Cadasters" in France before the Eighteenth Century
6.4. The Savoy Cadaster, 1728-38
6.5. Plans d'Intendance in the Généralités of Limoges, Riom (Auvergne), and Paris
6.6. Cadastral Mapping and Resource Evaluation in Corsica, 1770-96
6.7. Jean-François Henry de Richeprey: "Father of the French Cadaster"
6.8. First Napoleonic Cadastral Survey with Plans par Masses de Cultures
6.9. The Cadastre Parcellaire of 1807
6.10. Compiling the Ancien Cadastre
6.11. Value of the Ancien Cadastre
6.12. Napoleonic Cadasters in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg
6.13. The Cadastral Map in France

7. England and Wales
7.1. Surveys of Church and Crown Lands Sequestered during the Civil Wars
7.2. Cadastral Maps and the Enclosure of Open Fields, Commons, and Waste
7.3. The Tithe Commutation Surveys
7.4. Registration of Title to Land
7.5. Land Taxation and Cadastral Mapping
7.6. The Ordnance Survey's "Cadastral" Maps
7.7. The 1910 Finance Act and the Maps of "Lloyd George's Domesday"
7.8. The Cadastral Map in England and Wales

8. Colonial Settlement from Europe
8.1. Maps and Early Colonial Settlement
8.2. Bermuda
8.3. The "Virginia Method" of Settlement before Cadastral Survey
8.4. New France: Acadia and Quebec
8.5. Louisiana, Texas, and the Florida Parishes: France, Spain, and England
8.6. The "New England Method" of Cadastral Survey before Sale of Land
8.7. West and East Jersey
8.8. The "Land of the Western Waters" and the Origins of the United States' Public Domain
8.9. The British in Canada
8.10. County and State Maps and Atlases Based on Land Plats
8.11. New South Wales
8.12. South Australia
8.13. The Torrens System of Land Registration
8.14. New Zealand
8.15. The Survey of India Revenue Surveys
8.16. Cadastral Maps and Colonial Settlement

9. Cadastral Maps in the Service of the State
9.1. The Chronology of State Cadastral Mapping
9.2. The Uses of Cadastral Maps
9.3. The Rediscovery of the Cadastral Map: Toward an Explanation
Appendix: A Regional Guide to German Cadastral Literature
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Subjects and Places