Mondo Knows Facts
The Ordnance Survey began by mapping southern England
Military mapmakers started with Kent in 1791 and never stopped Fearing French invasion, the Board of Ordnance commissioned a detailed map of the south coast, beginning with Kent at a scale of one inch to the mile. The survey soon expanded across Britain and became a civilian institution. Its trig pillars, erected from 1935, remained a fixture of the British landscape for decades. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: maps, britain, surveying
The Ordnance Survey began by mapping southern England: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Military mapmakers started with Kent in 1791 and never stopped. The figure is taken from Ordnance Survey, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a history fact?
- Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.