Crown Land Registry (Tantalis)

Tantalis is an internal B.C. goverment database application used to record rights, interests and encumbrances on Crown land under the legislative requirements of the Land Act. It is comprised of a suite of business applications and an integrated database of attribute and spatial data that is used by government staff in numerous provincial agencies.

The core of the Tantalis database consists of:

• Current & historical Crown land parcels
• Survey plans
• Reversions
• Acquisition database records

The provincial government works to ensure spatial representation of Crown land registry records are accurate, reliable and complete.

History

The Crown land registry has been maintained by the Province of British Columbia since the Hudson's Bay Company first began surveying land in B.C. in the 1850s.

At one time, large hardcopy registers were used to record this information. In the 1980s, these land records were digitized. In the 1990s, a web accessible computer interface was created.

Spatial Data

Tantalis spatial data consists of a seamless fabric of current and historical Crown land survey data and Crown land tenure (cadastral) information spanning the extent of British Columbia. It also features several types of administrative areas relevant to land disposition, including:

• Land Districts
• Regional Districts
• Municipalities

Tantalis spatial data was compiled using coordinate geometry, and referenced to existing survey control and to the Terrain Resource Information Management geographical data available at the time of compilation.