Most of the countries with developed economies can count on a cadastral system. This is not the case of the USA. The administrative fragmentation, so cherished since the foundation of the country to avoid totalitarian rule by balancing powers, causes that the access to cadastral data, simple on a nationwide scale in France or Spain, requires local knowledge in the United States.

The report by the Congressional Research Service argues that the share of geographical data produced by private and non federal actor is rising, increasing the need for coordination to avoid cost duplication. The most urgent need to implement such a system arises from emergency management (a branch with strong federal involvement), monitoring natural phenomena and climate change, or the real estate crisis and the foreclosure dynamics. Options to organize the system in legal terms are advanced, as well as the potential problems of the implementation of such a system.

I wonder if we will ever see in Europe a continental cadastre, taking into account the sheer diversity of our legal systems.