Surveying in Australia

However, a distinctive feature of surveying in Australia is the Torrens System, where real estate records are held in a central deposit and guaranteed by the state.

Cook's experience in creating nautical charts of the eastern seaboard of Canada was an important factor in his appointment as captain of the voyage observing the transit of Venus.

Many towns in Australia were established by dividing a suitable site into small plots of land that were sold to English residents who then emigrated.

In 1837, Colonel William Light, first Surveyor-General of South Australia adapted maritime navigation techniques for determining a ship's position at sea (co-ordinates of latitude and longitude) to define property boundaries, and thereby devised and implemented the world's first co-ordinated cadastre, employing a Trigometrical Survey of the District of Adelaide (Adelaide Plains) four times more accurate than the contemporary British Ordnance Survey.

[11] After an extensive search, the present site, about 300 kilometres south-west of Sydney, in the foothills of the Australian Alps, was chosen in 1908 as a result of survey work done by the government surveyor Charles Scrivener in that year.