ABSTRACT
Ecuador is bordered by Colombia and Peru with a coastline of 2,237 km. Its terrain is coastal plain, inter-Andean central highlands, and flat to rolling eastern jungle. The French mission to Quito to determine the length of a degree of latitude (and to help settle the argument) started in 1735. The survey was under the direction of Charles-Marie de la Condamine with Louis Godin, and Pierre Bouguer of France. On June 30, 1927, the Technical Commission for the "Survey of the National Topographic Map" was created to coordinate the various existing systems of geographic and plane rectangular coordinates being employed for official engineering applications. There seems to be no surviving record of those earlier systems. According to Ing. Vincente E. Avila, the Ecuadorian SGM substituted their name to Instituto Geografico Militar, "Military Geographic Institute," about the same time they attended the Pan American Institute of Geography and History meeting in Mexico City.
