Resource information
The French cadastral map depicts and identifies property ownership for tax purposes. It is the only continually-updated, large-scale plot map that covers all of French territory. The map is published annually in each French municipality and has been available free of charge to the general public since 2008 on the website www.cadastre.gouv.fr/, which has proved to be extremely successful. The computerisation of the cadastral map, which the Directorate General of Taxes started in 1993 in partnership with local authorities, made additional incremental improvements to the correlation between cadastral and land register information, which was a fundamental principle laid down during the major reform of real property registration in 1955. In addition to the cadastral map itself, the computerisation of all land, cadastral and mortgage, documentation has made the French cadastral and mortgage system more reliable, flexible and economical, and has contributed to maintaining a form of social order for 200 years in the area of land ownership. It has thus helped to consolidate a climate of trust. The computerisation of the system has also led to major productivity gains for the administration and offers new services to administration officers, land and real estate professionals, and to the general public.
