Land administration

Land administration is the way in which the rules of land tenure are applied and made operational. Land administration, whether formal or informal, comprises an extensive range of systems and processes to administer.^[1] The processes of land administration include the transfer of rights in land from one party to another through sale, lease, loan, gift and inheritance; the regulating of land and property development; the use and conservation of the land; the gathering of revenues from the land through sales, leasing, and taxation; and the resolving of conflicts concerning the ownership and the use of land. Land administration functions may be divided into four components: Juridical, regulatory, fiscal, and information management. These functions of land administration may be organized in terms of agencies responsible for surveying and mapping, land registration, land valuation and land revenue generation.^[2] The purpose and scope of this knowledge domain appear from the following introducing notes:

These Guidelines define land administration as the process whereby land and the information about land may be effectively managed. They are mainly written for senior governmental staff and politicians engaged in land administration issues. The aim is to outline the benefit of having a relevant and reliable land information system in place. The Guidelines identify the factors that should be taken into account in developing the legislation, organization, databases and maps, as well as the funding mechanisms, required to implement and maintain a solid land administration system.^[3]

An early example of use of the notion of land administration is a 1973 Seminar on Land Administration in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.^[4] Land administration arrangements were charted in a 1985 paper by Holstein, McLaughlin, and Nichols,^[5] and the Department of Lands and Surveys, Western Australia changed name in 1986 to Department of Land Administration.^[6] The UNECE in 1996 published Land Administration Guidelines With Special Reference to Countries in Transition,^[7] and the Dale & McLaughlin textbook on Land Information Management from 1988 was in 1999 succeeded by the textbook Land Administration.