Land Survey and the Structuring of the Stable Cadastre in Dalmatia during the reign of Francis I: The Imperial Patent of 1817 ... Cover Image

Zemljišna izmjera i ustroj Stabilnoga katastra Franje I. u Dalmaciji prema Carevu patentu iz 1817. i Katastarskome i mjerničkome naputku iz 1820.
Land Survey and the Structuring of the Stable Cadastre in Dalmatia during the reign of Francis I: The Imperial Patent of 1817 ...

Author(s): Marija Gjurašić
Subject(s): History
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: 19th century; Habsburg Monarchy; Dalmatia; land registration; geodesists; the Stabile cadastre of Francis I; the Imperial Patent of 1817; the Cadastral and Surveying Instruction of 1820

Summary/Abstract: The author describes the formation of the first stable cadastre and the development of Austrian administration in Dalmatia, which was officially annexed to the Habsburg Monarchy after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Following the Imperial Patent of August 3, 1816, this province created a separate Austrian kingdom: the kingdom of Dalmatia, which included Dubrovnik and Kotor, and was directly subjected to the court in Vienna (1816-1918). The Monarchy was interested in Dalmatia only for military and strategic reasons, and the complexity of the state bureaucracy made life difficult for the Dalmatian people. Further confusion in the everyday life of the region was caused by the fact that, at the time of the Second Austrian Administration in Dalmatia, the official languague was Italian [and occasionally even three languages were in use (German, Italian, and Croatian)]. This resulted in peculiar names and jurisdictions of certain governmental institutions, which changed several times due to frequent reorganizations of the bureaucratic apparatus and could sometimes even have multiple meanings (e.g. the institution of the county had a threefold meaning: territorial, administrative, and judicial). Despite all this, a positive reminder of these difficult times in Dalmatian history is the benefit of the land survey and the establishment of the first stable cadastre in Dalmatia, which today still relies on the information gained from the cadastre survey of Francis I (not only in Dalmatia, but also in 75% of the presentday Croatian territory). The trigonometric triangulation of Dalmatia, which is the procedure of land surveying using the system of triangles, began in Zadar in 1822 and ended in 1838 (after several brief interruptions in the period between 1830 and 1834). In order to carry out the survey and to implement the cadastre of Francis I, “Instructions for Officers Involved in the Survey” were published in 1810, and “Cadastral and Surveying Instructions for the Stable Cadastre” in 1818 (Katastral-Vermessungs-Instruktion – Instruktion Stabiler Kataster 1818), which were valid throughout the Habsburg Monarchy, and improved and amended several times. This paper analyzes the “Cadastral and Surveying Instruction” from 1829, which has translated into Croatian. The analysis has revealed great meticulousness, accuracy, scientific approach, and thorough preparation behind the land survey that was to include the entire Monarchy. The “Cadastral and Surveying Instruction” consists of six parts: the first deals with the structure and scope of cadastral administration, as well as its connection to the staff in charge of managing and carrying out the survey. The second part lists the instructions defining the necessary preparations for a detailed survey and the mode of graphic triangulation. The third part deals with the instruments and presents in detail the procedure of surveying land and creating land plots, as well as their registration.

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 46
  • Page Range: 287-358
  • Page Count: 72
  • Language: Croatian