A Brief History of Land and Properly Surveying

The history of land surveys goes back as far as 3,000 B.C. with the Egyptians. They used simple geometry to survey and construct structures like the pyramids. Techniques that were used back then are often used today. When surveying the foundation of a house, the same principles are used that the Egyptians used when building their structures.

Maps or blue prints are drawn when doing land surveys. Just as the Egyptians used hieroglyphics to map out statues and buildings, we use the same basic mapping when surveying. Think about how much time and surveying needed to give us an Atlas. In the 1500's an Atlas was created by combining maps that people had drawn of their areas to give us a fattened image of the world.
As surveying continued, longitude and latitude emerged so we could define exactly where we were positioned on Earth. As technology advanced, we now have Global Positioning Systems that act as navigators. Satellites take images of land survey and send out a signal to our GPS systems to tell us where we are and how long it will take to get where we are going.

There's software out there that takes this idea a bit further. property survey is imaged in a way that we can look at a street view of the building or landmark we are trying to find. By taking one picture then rotating the camera, you are able to rotate the view of the map 180 degrees. This helps immensely when you are trying to identify a location with different landmarks and symbols. As GPS navigation advances, the graphic user interfaces shown will be able to incorporate this technology. You will be able to view a location as if you were there in person.

While we have more advanced tools to calculate geometry, the Egyptians did their best to estimate geometry. What they came up with are the Pyramids. Said to be near perfect in their structure, which leads us to wonder how they accomplished this. Point of reference became a crucial effort the Egyptians used to build the pyramids. Positions of the sun, distances of shadows is how some came to conclusions based in geography.

We use bits of geography and survey in our every day lives. When you judge the distance of an object and estimate how long it will take you to reach it, is the same principle that goes into land surveys. The boundaries of states and property are man made. They are estimations of distance we perceive between two points.

About the author: Jason Ausmus is a web content producer for Innuity. For more information regarding land surveysand property survey, visit Dryco Surveying