A cadastre or cadaster ( kə-DAS-tər) is a comprehensive recording of the metes-and-bounds of a country's real estate or real property. Often it is represented graphically in a cadastral map, though historical written accounts, such as the Domesday Book in England in 1086, were early examples of cadastre. In most countries, legal systems have developed around original administrative systems and use the cadastre to define the dimensions and location of land parcels described in legal documentation. A land parcel or cadastral parcel is defined as "a continuous area, or more appropriately volume, that is identified by a unique set of homogeneous property rights". Cadastral surveys document the boundaries of land ownership, by the production of documents, diagrams, sketches, plans (plats in the US), charts, and maps. They were originally used to ensure reliable facts for land valuation and taxation. Cadastral survey information is often a base element in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or Land Information Systems (LIS) used to assess and manage land and built infrastructure. Such systems are also employed on a variety of other tasks, for example, to track long-term changes over time for geological or ecological studies, where land tenure is a significant part of the scenario. The cadastre is a fundamental source of data in disputes and lawsuits between landowners. Land registration and cadastre are both types of land recording and complement each other. Under his code, Napoleon established a comprehensive cadastral system for France that is regarded as the forerunner of most modern versions. By allowing for the clear assignment of rights to property, and demarcating and delimiting parcels of land, cadasters have been credited with strengthening the financial independence of land owners, facilitating economic risk taking and in turn growth in output and employment, and improving state fiscal capacity (through, for example, improved tax collection and more properly valued real estate markets).
Etymology and definition The word cadastre came into English through French from the Greek katástikhon (κατάστιχον), a list or register, from katà stíkhon (κατὰ στίχον)—literally, "(organised) line by line". A cadastre commonly includes details of the ownership, the tenure, the precise location, the dimensions (and area), the cultivations if rural, and the value of individual parcels of land. Cadastres are used by many nations around the world, some in conjunction with other records, such as a title register. The International Federation of Surveyors defines cadastre as follows:
A Cadastre is normally a parcel-based, and up-to-date land information system containing a record of interests in land (e.g. rights, restrictions and responsibilities). It usually includes a geometric description of land parcels linked to other records describing the nature of the interests, the ownership or control of those interests, and often the value of the parcel and its improvements.
History
Some of the earliest cadastres were ordered by Roman Emperors to recover state owned lands that had been appropriated by private individuals, and thereby recover income from such holdings. One such cadastre was done in AD 77 in Campania, a surviving stone marker of the survey reads "The Emperor Vespasian, in the eighth year of his tribunician power, so as to restore the state lands which the Emperor Augustus had given to the soldiers of Legion II Gallica, but which for some years had been occupied by private individuals, ordered a survey map to be set up with a record on each 'century' of the annual rental". In this way Vespasian was able to reimpose taxation formerly uncollected on these lands. With the fall of Rome, the use of cadastral maps was effectively discontinued. Medieval practice used written descriptions of the extent of land rather than using more precise surveys. Only in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries did the use of cadastral maps resume, beginning in the Netherlands. With the emergence of capitalism in Renaissance Europe, the need for cadastral maps reemerged as a tool to determine and express control of land as a means of production. This took place first privately in land disputes and later spread to governmental practice as a means of more precise tax assessment.
Surveys
Map
A cadastral map is a map that shows the boundaries and ownership of land parcels. Some cadastral maps show additional details, such as survey district names, unique identifying numbers for parcels, certificate of title numbers, positions of existing structures, section or lot numbers and their respective areas, adjoining and adjacent street names, selected boundary dimensions and references to prior maps. James C. Scott, in Seeing Like a State, argues that all maps, but particularly cadastral maps, are designed to make local situations legible to an outsider, and in doing so, enable states to collect data on their subjects. He sees the origins of this in Early Modern Europe, where taxation became more complex. Cadastral maps, he argues, are always a great simplification, but they in themselves help change reality.
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