Maps, land & land title—are they synonymous? asks Carl Calvert
Certainty of land tenure is a prerequisite of land economy. However the extent of the land is not always defined with an adequate degree of certainty. What follows here is a look at the similarities and differences in both requirements and actualities of land title mapping in England & Wales and France.
A good definition of land usually begins with the use of a topographical map. In the British Isles there are the Ordnance Surveys (OSGB, OSNI and OSI) while in France there is the Institut Géographique National (IGN) The French “cadastre” is at a larger scale but its objective is for taxation purposes and not to define legal extents of ownership.
The OS provide mapping at 1:25000 (the same as the carte IGN) but importantly the OS provide mapping at 1:1250 in urban areas, 1:2500 in rural areas and 1:10000 in mountain and moorland areas. The Land Registry in England and Wales (LR) use these large scale OS topographical maps as a basis for the LR Title Plans.
The IGN map
