Have you ever seen a land surveyor taking measurements before and wondered how that job was established?
Surprisingly, land surveyors have been around for centuries and although the job has changed, it has been an established career for some time.
Land surveying, defined as the process by which land is mathematically measured and mapped, has been around since ancient civilizations. Even in ancient times, people owned land, which created a need for land surveyors.
The first records of land surveying can be found in ancient Egypt, when engineers were building the Great Pyramid of Giza in 2700 B.C. Tablets and drawings found dating back to those days show the Egyptians used basic geometry to draw boundary lines at the Nile after the banks had overflown.
When the Greek and Roman Empires formed, historical evidence shows that the empires actually employed official land surveyors. The job required using simple tools to draw accurate border lines and angles over a map of the empire. The Greeks were thought to standardize geometric procedures for surveying purposes.
Napoleon Bonaparte is known as one of the most well-known land surveyors. His maps were incredibly precise because he referenced them in his travels and in conquering distant lands.
Surveying land wasn’t considered an official profession until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century. As rapid growth and development of cities and towns across the world took place, accurate measurements of borders and distances between states and countries, and the geographical properties of the land were never more important.
These days, the tools we use to measure distances and slopes are a bit more sophisticated, but the main purpose is largely the same.
Based in Shaftsbury, Vermont, BLAZE Design Inc. is a surveying company dedicated to providing quality and cost-effective land use planning and surveying services.