Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre in the Czech Lands —
History, Present State and Perspectives
by Jirí Šíma
Key words: Czech Lands, surveying, mapping, cadastre.
Abstract
1. History
Beginning of surveying and land registration in the
Czech Lands may be found around 1270 during the reign of the king Premysl
Otakar II (institution of authorised surveyors, definition of measures
of length used to survey of lots, domesday books registering the
property of nobles, free towns and church). Excellent surveyors and
astronomers were active in Prague, among them Tycho Brahe and Johannes
Kepler. The oldest maps of the Czech Lands are dated 1518 (map of
Bohemia), 1561 (map of Silesia) and 1569 (map of Moravia). The first
text-book for surveyors was edited in Prague in 1617.
After 1620 the Czech Lands became for 300 years a
part of the Austrian (and later Austro-Hungarian) Empire. Development
of surveying and beginning of cadastre were common to a group of other
lands forming this Empire, e.g. to Austria, Hungary, Slovakia,
Croatia, Slovenia and two North-Italian provinces. In 1718 the first
School of Engineering with lessons from surveying was established in
Prague. At the end of the 18th century the first military
mapping took place and the Cadastre of Lands was established by the
Emperor Joseph II. In 1912 the Society of Czech Surveyors has traced
out three basic goals: to concentrate all organisations of surveying
and mapping in one, to prolong university studies of surveying to four
years and to gain equal position of surveyors in public services with
other graduates from technical universities.
In 1918 the Czech Lands became part of the
Czechoslovak Republic. In twenties and thirties the national geodetic
reference system was formed as well as a national cartographic
projection. In 1927 Czechoslovakia became member of the International
Federation of Surveyors (FIG). In the same year the Act on the
Cadastre of Lands came in power. Together with detailed technical
instructions it gave start to dispatched forming of a modern cadastre.
During the World War II the Czech Lands became a
part of Great German Empire as its Protectorate. This epoch has
contributed to concentration of state surveying in the Land Survey
Office except for the cadastre which still remained in the sphere of
the Ministry of Finances.
Results of the World War II resulted in
incorporation of Czechoslovakia into the East Block of Socialist
Countries bringing some positive and some negative consequences. A
boon may be seen in fulfillment of the three basic goals of Czech
surveyors from 1912, integration of fundamental trigonometric, levelling
and gravimetric networks and unification of medium and small-scale map
series. On contrary, this epoch brought a suppression of the Cadastre
of Real Estates that originally registered proprietary relations to
lands, its replacement by the Land Registry recording user relations
to lands only, as well as forcible influencing the content, form and
distribution of maps caused by secrecy mania. During forty years of
communist rule the private sector of surveying and mapping became
completely extinct.
2. Present State
Czechoslovakia was divided peacefully on the 1st
January 1993 and the Czech Lands (Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia) became
the Czech Republic. At the same time a central body of state
administration was established — the Czech Office for Surveying,
Mapping and Cadastre which supervises activities of 77 Cadastral
Offices in districts, 7 Survey and Cadastral Inspectorates in regions,
Land Survey Office with nation-wide field of activity and the Research
Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography.
Activities of state administration bodies are
strictly regulated by law. Other survey and cartographic activities
are carried out by private firms (about 500 enterprises) and by licensed
surveyors (about 1800), e.g., laying-out and delimitation of lots,
production of survey sketches (more than 120 thousand annually),
surveying for building construction (engineering geodesy) and creation
of thematic maps, charts and atlases.
In 1994 two basic concepts of long-time activities
were defined:
- digitising of the Cadastre of Real Estates (1994 - 2006),
- forming of the Fundamental Base of Geographic Data (ZABAGED) as
a topologic-vectorial basic layer to GIS and computer created
medium and small map series.
Till the end of 1999 a considerable part of these
goals was fulfilled: the File of Descriptive Information of the
Cadastre of Real Estates was fully digitised and ZABAGED has covered
more than 80% of the national territory. The fundamental horizontal
control was integrated into the European frame (EUREF). The Czech
Republic is a NATO member and the Military Topographic Service of the
Army of the Czech Republic co-operates effectively on creating of
unified map series in digital form (V-map).
3. Perspectives
The main task at the beginning of the coming millennium
will be implementation of the so-called Enhanced Information System of
the Cadastre enabling integration of descriptive and geodetic data of
the cadastre, their maintenance in local area networks (LAN), the
replication in the Central Data Base by the wide area network (WAN)
and remote access of end users by means of the Internet. The
Fundamental Base of Geographic Data (ZABAGED) will be updated in
four-years-intervals. Since 2005 it will represent the exclusive
source of data for computer created medium and small scale maps. In
the same period close relation between civil and military geographic
data bases will be achieved. After vectorising of all cadastral maps
(2006) the Enhanced National Geodetic Reference System (S-JTSK/95)
will be implemented into cadastre and large-scale mapping. Concept of
development of national geoinformation infrastructure will be started
in 2000. Its goal is to form legislative, standardised, organisational
and technological environment suitable to acquisition, processing and
distributing geographical information required by public
administration and private sector.
MSc. Jirí Šíma, PhD.
Czech Office for Surveying, Mapping and Cadastre
Pod sídlištěm 9
182 11 Praha 8
CZECH REPUBLIC
E-mail: jiri.sima@cuzk.cz
Web site: http://www.cuzk.cz
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