ABSTRACT
The island of Jamaica is slightly smaller than Connecticut, and it has a 1,022 km coastline. Jamaica claims a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, and a continental shelf of 200 nautical miles or to the edge of the continental margin. Inhabited by Arawak Indians when Columbus discovered the island in 1494, a Spanish colony was established in 1509. Jamaica and the Cayman Islands were ceded to Britain in 1670 under the Treaty of Madrid and Jamaica remained a British Colony until it became independent in 1962 within the Commonwealth. The Department of Lands and Surveys was formed in 1938, and “the layout of the trigonometrical survey was complete by the end of the year. Control densification work continued by the Jamaica Survey Department, and Directorate of Overseas Surveys with its library was incorporated into the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain.
