Place of Memory

Welcome to the National Land Survey of Finland’s history website, www.mapscroll.fi. This site will take you through five centuries of land survey in Finland, describing their impact on the land and its inhabitants. The www.mapscroll.fi website is the memory of land survey.

You can access the Archive Centre and the Land Surveying Museum from these pages. Whether you are a traveller, scientist, student or land survey professional, or just interested in the subject, www.mapscroll.fi is your window to the multi-faceted world of land survey.

Measure of Land

Go to the exhibition by clicking the icons on the map

What is the measure of land? The Earth's circumference is 40 000 kilometres and its mass is 5.98×10²⁴ kg. The highest point on earth, Mount Everest, rises 8,846 metres above sea level; in the deepest part of the Ocean, the Mariana Trench, the bedrock lies 10,924 metres below the waves.

But how can we measure land without using such units of measurement? What is meaning of land? Why is land important? What is the cultural measure of land?

These are some of the questions the online exhibition Measure of Land strives to answer. The exhibition demonstrates the fundamental importance of land and its division in the past and the present. The history of land survey also explains many features of today's Finland.

Thousands of lakes, holidays in the country, town-bred forest owners, abandoned milk platforms, post-war houses with identical design, border disputes: all of these help determine the measure of land.

World Heritage

The fascinating Struve Geodetic Arc – a tour de force in land surveying before the satellite era – is the sixth Finnish site accepted to the UNESCO World Heritage List. What makes the Struve Geodetic Arc particularly interesting as a World Heritage site is that it is not actually visible. The significance of the Arc lies in the effort put into its creation.

This page will tell you how the Struve Geodetic Arc came to be created. You can also follow its route, which nowadays runs through ten states. Six of the station points selected for protection are located in Finland.

Exercises for schools

What is land? Is it just the foundation on which everything else is built?

Tips for teachers

Tips for teaching and an invitation to contribute to the development of the material

Importance of Land

An esoteric science, or just dull fiddling with numbers? Land surveying may seem like an obscure branch of science, but it is actually very much present in our daily lives. We use land survey information and geographical data every day without paying much attention to the fact. The examples found on this page were designed as tools for teachers and to provide insightful learning experiences.