National mapping agency
A national mapping agency is an organisation, usually publicly owned, that produces topographic maps and geographic information of a country. Some national mapping agencies also deal with cadastral matters.
History
Ordnance Survey
The first national mapping agency was the Ordnance Survey in the United Kingdom;[1][2] its roots go back to 1747, when the compilation of a map of the Scottish Highlands was proposed.[3][4] This survey at a scale of 1 inch to 1000 yards (1:36,000)[5] was the starting point of the Principal Triangulation of Great Britain (1783–1853), and led to the creation of the Ordnance Survey itself; work was begun in earnest in 1790, when the Board of Ordnance began a national military survey at one-inch-to-the-mile (1:63,360 scale).[6] During the next thirty years, roughly a third of England and Wales was mapped (see Principal Triangulation of Great Britain), as other military matters took precedence.[7]
List of national mapping agencies
See also
References
- ↑ "Ordnance Survey forms OS International to offer national mapping assistance internationally".
- ↑ Nina Morgan. "Ordnance Survey maps that changed the world" (PDF).
- ↑ By Lieutenant-Colonel David Watson to facilitate the subjugation of the clans following the Jacobite rising of 1745
- ↑ Porter, Whitworth (1889). "History of the Corps of Royal Engineers" I. London: Longmans, Green, and Co: 167–68. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
- ↑ Hindle, Paul (1998). Maps for Historians. Phillimore & Co. pp. 114–115. ISBN 0-85033-934-0.
- ↑ Hindle, Paul (1998). Maps for Historians. Phillimore & Co. p. 117. ISBN 0-85033-934-0.
- ↑ Seymour, W.A., ed. (1980). A History of the Ordnance Survey. Folkestone: Wm Dawson & Sons. p. 71
- ↑ Names in the languages listed on the agency's website
- ↑ "Natural Resources Canada"
External links
- National Mapping Agencies in UNESCO website, based on World Mapping Today