A lot of land surveying jobs are done to determine a property’s boundary. In order to do this, a surveyor surveys the property and then puts markers on the boundary line called “monuments”.

There are two kinds of monuments – the natural and the artificial.

Natural monuments include trees, large stones or anything made by nature that was already in place before the surveying was done.

Artificial monuments, on the other hand, include pins, stakes or concrete monuments. These are all put in place by human – whether the surveyor, owner or somebody else who meant it to mark the property’s corner. Property pins are also called property markers, surveyor or survey stakes. Property pins for land surveying comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, depending on the year they were put in.

Centuries ago, surveyors use wooden stakes, gun barrels, mounds of stones and even whiskey bottles. These does not always hold up and can be moved by people, animals or even nature. Because of this, there can be a lot of conflict between old and recent land surveys on a specific property.

The more recent artificial monuments include rods or pipes with an affixed plastic cap over the top. The cap usually bears the responsible surveyor’s name and license number. This does not only let people know that they’re there to mark the property’s boundary but since it has the responsible surveyor’s name and license number, he’s easier to find/ contact in case another survey is done and the new surveyor gets a different result.

In asphalt or concrete areas, surveyors use nails or aluminum alloy caps to establish or re-establish boundary corners.

When placing property pins for land surveying, it’s very important that they are durable and stable. Monuments are meant to stay forever so re-establishment of the boundary corners in the future becomes easier.