Surveying
Science of determining the positions of points and the distances and angles between them
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We include updates on Mason–Dixon line, Mile, Acre, Azimuth, Right to light, Vertical and horizontal, Elevation, Spirit level, Furlong, 49th parallel north, Shoelace formula, Summit, Public Land Survey System, North-West Rebellion, Red River Rebellion, Ordnance Survey National Grid ... and more.
| 2025 | RICS reported 113,000 qualified members globally, with 105,000 Professional Members across nearly 150 countries. The majority of members remain in the United Kingdom, with significant presence in mainland Europe, Australia, and Hong Kong. |
| March 2025 | RICS president Justin Sullivan resigned after controversy over his role as an expert witness in a legal case, and referred himself to the standards and regulatory board. Nick Maclean was appointed as acting president. |
| February 7 2023 | Ownership of Ordnance Survey Ltd was transferred to the newly formed Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. |
| 2022 | BCIS was spun out of RICS, becoming an independent company separate from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. |
| December 2022 | RICS announced the establishment of a new board to oversee day-to-day operations, to be chaired by Martin Samworth. |
| August 2022 | Michael Bichard was appointed as interim senior independent governor through to 31 December 2023. |
| June 2022 | A subsequent review demanded a comprehensive transformation of the institution, highlighting ongoing organizational challenges. |
| June 21 2022 | The Bichard review was published, recommending sweeping reforms for the RICS. |
| January 2022 | The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities began planning legislation to enable regular reviews of RICS's governance in response to its previous decision on EWS1 forms. |
| 2021 | OS Maps expanded its coverage to include Australia, extending its geographical mapping services. |
| 2021 | Nearly all surveyors were utilizing CAD software and hardware for drafting and designing plans and plats of surveyed properties, both on PCs and in newer generation data collectors in the field. |
| 2021 | At this time, nearly all drafting work in land surveying is being done using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software on PCs and data collectors in the field. |
| December 2021 | RICS made a controversial decision to maintain its valuation advice requiring External Wall System forms (EWS1s) on blocks under 18m high, which frustrated government ministers. |
| December 2021 | RICS announced that former senior civil servant Michael Bichard would lead a six-month review into its governance and future purpose. |
| September 2021 | An independent review exposed significant governance issues, leading to the resignations of multiple top organizational leaders including the president, chief executive, interim chair of the governing council, and chair of the management board. |
| September 30 2021 | RICS issued a public apology to the wrongfully dismissed non-executive directors. |
| September 9 2021 | RICS CEO Sean Tompkins resigned after the Levitt Review was published, forfeiting a £190,000 bonus payment. |
| June 4 2021 | RICS' chief operating officer Violetta Parylo surprisingly resigned amid calls for reform. |
| April 2021 | Peter Oldham, chair of the independent review, resigned and was replaced by Alison Levitt QC. |
| February 2021 | RICS president Kathleen Fontana announced a strategic review into the institution's governance and member engagement. |
| January 22 2021 | RICS announced it would initiate an independent inquiry into the governance affair after initially rejecting an independent review. |
| 2020 | RICS published a new commercial lease code as a professional statement, replacing the previous iterations. The updated code reflected a more balanced lettings market between landlords and tenants, introducing mandatory obligations for RICS members and regulated firms. |
| 2019 | RICS reported financial difficulties, making a pre-tax loss of £4.7m on £91.3m of income, and subsequently made 140 people redundant. |
| November 2019 | Four non-executive directors were dismissed by then president Chris Brooke after expressing concerns about a critical BDO report on the organization's financial governance. |
| June 10 2019 | Steve Blair was appointed as Chief Executive of the Ordnance Survey by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). |
| April 2019 | Integrated Transport Network (ITN) layer was withdrawn and replaced by OS MasterMap Highways Network. |
| 2018 | RICS had qualified professionals in nearly 150 countries, with 134,000 accredited qualified and trainee professionals worldwide, demonstrating significant global membership expansion. |
| 2018 |
North-West Rebellion
Barkwell updated his '1885 Northwest Resistance Movement Biographies', listing the men and women who participated in the resistance.
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| June 2018 | Following Geospatial Commission recommendations, parts of OS Mastermap were released under the Open Government Licence, including property extents, TOIDs, and various mapping layers. |
| 2017 |
North-West Rebellion
Maia Caron published 'Song of Batoche', a historical novel about the North-West Rebellion from the perspectives of Métis women, Gabriel Dumont, and Louis Riel.
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| 2016 | Address layers were withdrawn, with address information moved to AddressBase products. |
| 2015 | Ordnance Survey ceased operating as a trading fund. |
| 2015 | Completed a data-capture programme of 'Road Routing Information' to add details like height restrictions and one-way streets to the transport network layer. |
| September 2015 | The history of Ordnance Survey was featured in a BBC Four TV documentary called 'A Very British Map: The Ordnance Survey Story'. |
| April 2015 | Completed transition to a government-owned limited company, while remaining fully owned by the UK government. |
| January 22 2015 | Plans were announced to move from a trading fund model to a government-owned limited company. |
| February 2014 | Launched OS Locate, a free mobile app for precise location tracking available on iOS and Android platforms. |
| 2013 | Ordnance Survey released its first official app, OS MapFinder, marking its entry into mobile application development. |
| 2013 | Ordnance Survey introduced an enhanced linked-data service with a SPARQL 1.1-compliant endpoint and bulk-download options. |
| 2013 | Became a founder member of the coalition to develop the International Property Measurement Standards (IPMS). |
| 2011 |
North-West Rebellion
Lawrence J. Barkwell published a 305-page book 'Veterans and Families of the 1885 Northwest Resistance'.
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| October 4 2011 | Prince Philip officially opened the new headquarters building. |
| February 10 2011 | Virtually all staff had relocated to the new 'Explorer House' building, with the old site sold off and redeveloped. |
| 2010 | Ordnance Survey announced the outsourcing of printing and warehouse operations, ending over 200 years of in-house printing. Butler, Tanner and Dennis (BT&D) secured the printing contract. |
| September 2010 | OS MasterMap introduced multiple themed layers including Topography, Integrated Transport Network, Imagery, Address, and Address 2 layers. |
| April 1 2010 | Ordnance Survey launched OS OpenData, releasing data sets under an attribution-only licence compatible with CC-BY. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Ordnance Survey, North-West Rebellion & Surveying, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.