The article discusses the implementation of unitary and exclusive property on real estate in the Austrian Empire in the nineteenth century, based on the example of Land Carniola. The main thesis of the article is that changes in property relations were crucially in?uenced by surveys. With the term survey, I refer to a distinct systematic manner of extracting knowledge about local and relatively commonplace phenomena, practices and practical knowledge, e.g., inventories of weights and measures, compilations of customary law, cadastral surveys, etc. The article illustrates this more broadly present scienti?c and governmental technique and its signi?cance for the transformations of law by studying the impact of three cadastral surveys-the Theresian, Josephine and, especially, Franciscan-on the execution of the land relief (Grundentlastung), which established the modern institute of unitary and exclusive property in the territory of present-day Slovenia. Analysing the work involved in the making of the three cadastres, I show that cadastral surveyors prepared the ground for the later reform of land property relations by recording peasants’ practical knowledge of land features, proprietary and municipal boundaries, typical products, prices, etc.

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