As early as more than 2,000 years ago, during the Xia and Shang Dynasties, water conservancy projects began to survey and control water. Sima Qian described Xia's flood control in Historical Records as follows: "Land travel by car, water travel by boat, mud travel by pry, mountain travel by drive (jú), left by drive, right by drive, four o'clock by drive, to open Kyushu, Tongjiu Road, Beijiuze, Jiusan." It records the scene of engineering investigation at that time. The yardstick and ruler were the measuring tools used at that time. They must be level, rope is a tool for measuring distance, gauge is an instrument for drawing circles, and moment is a general measuring instrument for leveling, measuring length, height and depth, and drawing circles and rectangles. Early water conservancy projects were mostly river dredging for flood control irrigation, and its main measurement work was to determine the water level and dam height. Dujiangyan Water Control Project, built under the leadership of Li Bing and his son in Qin Dynasty, uses a stone man to calibrate the water level. When the water level exceeds the shoulders of the stone man, the downstream will be threatened by floods. When the water level is lower than the stone man's instep, the downstream will be dry. This method of calibrating water level is exactly the same as the principle of modern water level measurement. In the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to control the tribute, Shen Kuo measured that "the land of the capital was 19 feet, 4 feet, 8 inches and 6 minutes higher than Sizhou", which was the result of leveling. 1973 The maps unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha include topographic maps, garrison maps and city maps, which are not only rich in content, but also very skillful in drawing. They have reached a high level in color application, symbol design, content classification and simplification, and are the earliest maps found in the world at present, which is inseparable from the development of surveying and mapping at that time.

In14th century BC, the land boundary was divided and measured in the Euphrates and Nile basins. Cadastral management and land survey in China first appeared in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, and the Qin and Han Dynasties transformed into private land system. Sui and Tang Dynasties implemented the land equalization system and established the household registration book. In the Song Dynasty, land was registered and cleared by township, and a plot map appeared. In the fourth year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty, the whole country carried out a large-scale land inventory and investigation, and compiled the Atlas of Fish Scales, which is the earliest cadastral atlas in the world.

Military and transportation needs-travel, navigation, etc.

The war also promoted the development of engineering survey. The midday road built in China during the Warring States Period, the "Trench Valley, 1,800 Li" straight road built by Qin Shihuang in 2 10 BC, the military road built in ancient Rome and the Hannibal Passage built in Europe in 2 18 BC are all famous military roads. During the construction period, topographic survey, linear survey and directional excavation survey of tunnel will be carried out with measuring tools.

In the Tang Dynasty, Li Zhi pointed out that "the water attackers are strong, ... first set up a checkpoint to measure their strength, they can float the city, irrigate the army, immerse the camp and be defeated", which explained the role of measuring the terrain in the success or failure of military affairs. The Great Wall of Wan Li is a great symbol of the Chinese nation, which was built in Qin and Han Dynasties. This huge national defense project, from the overall layout to the construction, has carried out detailed survey and construction lofting work.

China mining industry is the earliest developed country in the world. In the era of the Yellow Emperor more than two thousand years BC, bronze, iron and other metals had been used, and by the Zhou Dynasty, metal tools had been widely used. According to Zhou Li, the Zhou Dynasty established a special mining department, attached great importance to the shape of ore bodies, and used mineral geological maps to determine the distribution of minerals.

Compass is one of the four great inventions in China, with a history of more than 2000 years, which has made great contributions to mine survey and other engineering surveys. Abroad, Turin, Italy, has a map of gold deposits in BC15th century. In BC13rd century, Egypt also had scaled-down road maps. In the first century BC, the Greek scholar Gro Alexander Riski described underground survey and orientation. Germany has made great contributions to mine investigation. The book "Mining and Metallurgy" published by G Agricola in 1556 specifically discusses some problems of measuring underground roadway with compass in mining.