Cadastre or Land Administration: A Case Study of Turkey

Abstract

Cadastral systems have evolved over time primarily based on the changes in humankind to land relationship and technology. Land was regarded as a main symbol of wealth during the agricultural revolution and feudal system, and the cadastre recorded land ownership in this period. Cadastre became a tool to support land transfer and land markets during the Industrial Revolution when a process of strong physical ties to the land began. The post-World War II period with population boom generated awareness that land was a scarce resource. Countries preferred to address the scarcity with better planning in this period, and cadastre supported the planning process. Finally, in the 1980s, the focus was on wider issues of environmental degradation, sustainable development and social equity, and thus, land became a ‘scarce community resource’. This forced the extension of cadastres into land administration systems (Ting and Williamson 1999; Williamson 2001a; Bogaerts et al. 2002; Steudler et al. 2004; Bennett et al. 2013; Cete and Yomralioglu 2013).