Glossary

We have designed this website to minimize the use of technical terms, or the use of common terms with a particular technical meaning. Nevertheless we have retained some technical words, where it would be awkward to convey same meaning in non-technical language, and where the need for such a term recurs repeatedly.

We have defined our technical terms in this section wherever it occurred to us to do so. Please let us know if you need any definitions expanded, or if there are other terms here that need to be defined.

Administrative Boundary Management System (ABMS) This is the provincial database for administrative boundary information. These divisions include school districts, municipalities and regional districts, agricultural regions, land districts, electoral districts, land title districts and assessment areas, plus regional and district boundaries used by various provincial ministries. All the boundaries used for provincial government administrative purposes are kept up-to-date and are made available as digital mapsheet layers. For more information about ABMS, visit our Products & Services page.

Atlas This is the name of our project to capture, in digital images, complete sets of our official records, and make them available for viewing over the Internet. The project will provide high quality colour images of Crown grant documents, official survey plans, and other records. For more information about Atlas products, visit our Products & Services page.

Attribute data Information about Crown land can be stored in three basic formats, depending on the type of information. Attribute data is alpha-numeric information that can be stored in standard text files, unlike spatial or document data.

British Columbia Assessment Authority (BCAA) This is a Crown corporation responsible for property assessments of all privately owned lands in the province.

Land and Water British Columbia Inc. (LWBC) is a Crown company responsible for marketing and management of provincial Crown land and assets. For more information, visit the LWBC website: http://www.bc-land-assets.com. LWBC provides marketing and land management services for the Province of British Columbia. For more information, visit the LWBC website:

Business application A business application is a term we use to describe a customized software program created to provide support for performing a particular aspect of our business.

Business Task Force The Business Task Force was created by the Ministry of Environment, Lands & Parks in 1999 to review business practices within the ministry and recommend ways to streamline operations.

Cadastral Data Management System (CDMS) The system that manages the cadastral (property boundary) information for the province.

Cadastre Cadastral The term "cadastre" and the adjective "cadastral" refer to a register, survey or map of lands as a basis for taxation. Cadastral data or information is essentially the information that enables the accurate depiction of a legal survey on a map. Together, all of this information is called cadastral fabric. The system that manages this information for the province is the Cadastral Data Management System (CDMS).

Crown land grant A Crown grant is the legal instrument by which ownership of Crown (public) land is transferred to private ownership. CLR maintains the historic records of approximately 235,000 pages of Crown grants. These grants document the original titles of all privately-owned land in British Columbia.

Crown Land Registry (CLR) is a section under the Registries Department of the provincial Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management that looks after the Crown Land Registry. The Crown Land Registry manages official records of grants and interests and interests in Crown land, as well as Crown land survey records.

Database system A database is a body of information stored in electronic format, and indexed so that the system as a whole can be queried and particular records of related data retrieved.

Document data Data in the CLR information systems are stored in three types of format: spatial, attribute, and document. Document data is a detailed electronic "copy" of an original document, which can be retrieved from the system and viewed at any scale, to show all the significant features of the original document. The Atlas system, when completed, will house all CLR document data and all official land records in the Crown Land Registry.

Electronic information revolution The work a person performs and stores electronically can be used over and over again, and manipulated in different formats for different purposes, to multiply the effects of that person's work by many times. In addition, computers and software programs have been developed that partially or fully automate many tasks, producing additional efficiencies. By electronically linking the work performed by many individuals, information can be used in ways that just a few years ago could only be dreamed of. Crown land records in electronic format have become indispensable to the daily operation of other government resource agencies, further multiplying the savings that electronic information allows. The information technology we have pioneered in mapping Crown land survey records into a continuous electronic fabric is now being used as an information source in various formats, in combination with the data of other agencies, to create further efficiencies across government.

Encumbrance An encumbrance is a registered legal interest in land. Crown land encumbrances include grants, tenures, reserves, rights of way, and transfers of administration and control. Encumbrance information in the Crown Land Registry traces the allocation and return of these interests relative to the original Crown ownership of all rights and interests in provincial lands.

Gator Gator is an acronym for Government Access Tool for Online Retrieval. Tantalis Gator is the access tool that CLR provides to enable other government agencies and non-government users to query the Tantalis database over the Internet. For information on using Gator, please visit our Contacts page.

GEO Report GEO Report is an abbreviation for Geographic Report. A GEO report provides a summary of parcel and interest information, selected from the Tantalis database by geographic criteria such as mapsheet number or geographic location.

Geographic Data BC Geographic Data British Columbia (GDBC) is the name of the branch of the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management responsible for provincial topographic and resource mapping.

GIS GIS is an acronym for geographic information system. A GIS combines specialized software with a database in which each closed shape, or polygon, is indexed to specific information about the land parcel the shape represents. A GIS can perform sophisticated geographical analyses of indexed data.

GPS technology GPS is an acronym for Global Positioning System. GPS technology depends on satellite signals rather than survey monuments to reference a position relative to the earth.

Hectare A hectare is a term in the metric system for an area equal to 10,000 square metres, or 2.47105 acres. Conversely, one acre equals 0.404686 hectares. The hectare is abbreviated as ha.

Integrated Survey Area (ISA) An integrated survey area (ISA) refers to an area designated by regulation containing a pattern of survey monuments tied to one another by precise measurements. Plans showing integrated survey areas are maintained at Crown Land Registry Services. An order of the Surveyor General under Part 2 of the Land Survey Act constitutes an integrated survey area and defines its boundaries. We are in the middle of a project to make integrated survey area plans available on-line through the Surveyor General Branch website.

Land alienation When Crown land is granted or transferred to private ownership, the administrators of public lands refer to this as alienation, or land alienation.

Land Title Office (LTO) The Land Title Branch of the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management has the responsibility for maintaining a registry of all privately owned land in the province. Regional land title offices or registries are located in Kamloops, Nelson, New Westminster, Prince George (amalgamated with the former Prince Rupert Office), Vancouver and Victoria.

Land use planning There are various competing demands for the use of most uncommitted land in British Columbia. Land use planning is the process of making decisions regarding appropriate uses for land, and determining which uses are compatible so that land can be used in a sustainable manner to satisfy multiple needs.

Parcel registry A parcel is a generic term for an area of land under consideration for some purpose. A parcel registry organizes and maintains land parcel records (including survey records) concerning land parcels within a jurisdiction.

Parcel-based registry information systems (PaRIS) "Parcel-based" is a technical description for mapping that consists of a set of closed shapes called polygons, representing parcels of land, each one positionally located, and indexed to records in one or more textual (attribute) databases. The name "PaRIS" was given to an initiative for developing an information system to index information from British Columbia's Crown land and private parcel registries to the geographic shapes of all surveyed land parcels in British Columbia. This initiative is now formally known as the Integrated Cadastral Initiative (ICI). ICI will bring together complete sets of Crown and private parcel information for the first time, through partnerships with local governments, utilities and provincial government agencies.

Planimetric, planimetry Planimetry is mapping which represents the earth's surface as a flat plane, without topographic relief (vertical features). The cadastral or legal survey information required by the Crown Land Registry is entered and maintained within a planimetric mapping layer. Planimetry on CLR cadastral mapping includes lakes, shorelines, creeks, rivers, rapids, waterfalls, and glaciers.

Protected Area Strategy The Protected Area Strategy (PAS) is a British Columbia government initiative to double the protected area landbase from six percent to a full twelve percent by the year 2000.

Spatial data Data in the CLR information systems are stored in three types of format: spatial, attribute, and document. Spatial data contains all the information required to create a spatial (dimensional) representation of geographic shapes-as on a map. "Spatial data" means the same as "electronically stored map data," but the term "spatial data" is often used in preference to terms like "map" or "mapping data." This is because the word "map" connotes a fixed form of presentation, whereas spatial data is known for being able to be manipulated and presented in differing formats for different purposes..

Special management zone Special Management Zones have been created around some provincial parks through Land and Resource Management Plans and Regional Land Use Plans. By using and strengthening the concept of special management zones, the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management manages these public lands adjacent to parks in a manner that hopefully will ensure park values are not impaired and habitat linkages between protected areas are recognized. CLR administrative boundary mapping captures special management zones, and can represent them on mapping products if requested.

Status, digital status information "Status" is a term referring to legal interests in land, including ownership. Digital status information is in electronic format, and includes all the data elements required to show the spatial relationships of the land parcels concerned, as well as their legal interests.

Survey field book A field book is a copy (in a format prescribed by regulation) of the field notes recorded by a British Columbia Land Surveyor while conducting a Crown land survey. It contains distances, bearings, descriptions of terrain, ties to landmarks, etc., which define the subject survey. CLR retains field books for all Crown land surveys that were conducted prior to March 7, 1968, when the Crown Land Registry staff drafted the survey plan on the basis of field book contents. Since that date, surveyors have not been required to submit field books for deposit in the Registry, unless specifically requested by Registry staff. Instead, surveyors have submitted drafted survey plans for verification and deposit in the Registry.

Surveyor General The Surveyor General is the public official named in British Columbia statutes as the official responsible for the province's survey structure. For more information on the Surveyor General, see Mandate, on the Surveyor General page.

Surveyor General Branch is a branch under the Registries Department of the provincial Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management. The Surveyor General Branch is responsible for the province's survey structure-the system of survey plans and monumentation that precisely mark and locate the primary parcels from which all private properties originate.

Tantalis Tantalis is a newly built information system designed specifically for the needs of the complex workings of CLR and to provide automated support for all aspects of Crown land administration. It was designed to provide a foundation for integrating spatial data associated with mapping of survey plans and administrative boundaries with attribute data associated with legal documents and administrative records. In the long term, streamlining of the business processes of CLR must be based on the complete integration of these two kinds of data. For more information on Tantalis, visit our Business Solutions page.

Topographic, topography Topography is a way of representing vertical features. CLR mapping is able to use mapping layers produced by Base Mapping & Geomatic Services Branch to show topographic features, if requested.

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