Cadastre and land registration in El Salvador 

In 2001, COWI A/S embarked upon a major project of registration and verification of property rights in the provinces of San Salvador and La Libertad, and in 2002 the neighbouring province, La Paz, was added to these activities. The two projects formed a vital part of the total modernisation of the cadastre and land registry system in El Salvador, which was initiated in 1996 and is still in progress.

Large-scale projects

In spring 2005, our work in the three provinces was completed. But before we came this far, a considerable volume of work was carried out by the 400 national specialists involved in our two projects. All in all COWI made cadastral and registry work in urban and rural areas with a total size of approximately 3,500 km² - areas which included 500,000 parcels.
 

Economic growth via land registration

The aim of the two projects was to provide up-to-date cadastral maps locating the properties physically in order to secure the legal rights of ownership attached thereto.

However, the overall and long-term objective is to enhance the use of real property as collateral, generating investments and encouraging the movement of capital and thereby the flourishing of market economy in El Salvador.
 

Examples of what the two projects covered:

• Establishment of a geodetic network 
• Provision of a local geoide model, a Digital Terrain Model and aerotriangulation 
• Provision of digital orthophoto maps from aerial photography at scale 1:15,000 
• Provision of digital vector maps for the urban areas from aerial photography at scale 1:5,000 
• Field surveys for the verification of rights of ownership and delimitation of property boundaries
• Development and improvement of national standards for cadastral surveying and legal verification of ownership rights 
• Design, implementation and evaluation of a publicity campaign