Commissions Map of Spain in the 1850s

Abstract

The need to have a scientific map covering the whole Spanish territory led the Government in the 1850´s to the foundation of various Commissions with powers on geodesy, topography and cartography. These several Agencies worked simultaneously until 1859, when the Law on Territory Measuring was passed by Parliament and these Commissions were merged in one single Office. Technical issues of the works accomplished by these Agencies are examined in this article using information included in some of the documents held at the Topographical Archive of the National Geographical Institute of Spain. The main conclusions drawn show that the geodetic works fulfilled by these Commissions were crucial in calculating the geodetic network afterwards, their topographic measurements were reused some twenty years later for accomplishing the National Topographical Map of Spain, and their cadastral guidelines were applied during the following century to the Spanish Cadastre.