Land & Boundaries
Reading the Old Plats: A Field Guide to the Stories Hidden in Survey Records
How to read title blocks, bearings, monuments, notes, linework, and historical context without mistaking a beautiful drawing for the whole survey.
From the Index
Tag: Land Records
Reports, histories, and working notes filed under this subject.
Land & Boundaries
Small Mark, Big Meaning: How Survey Monuments Carry Boundaries Through Time
A brass disk, stone, pipe, or driven rod may look small, but its record can preserve a boundary or geodetic position across generations.
Land & Boundaries
Land and Law in Mesopotamia: Hammurabi, Canals, and Boundary Records
Long before a courthouse recorded subdivision plats, Mesopotamian cities used tablets, witnesses, field measures, canal rules, and royal authority to make land legible.
Land & Society
Mapping Korea: Cadastral Records, Mountain Landscapes, and the Daedongyeojido
How Korean mapmaking combined administration, routes, regional knowledge, and distinctive cartographic traditions.
Engineering & Infrastructure
Surveying the Iron Road, Part 3: Curves, Grades, Tunnels, and Rights-of-Way
A field guide to the railroad geometry and records that surveyors created—and still recover—along historic corridors.