Civic Survey, 1938-1950

The Civic Survey comprises a map of the City of Sydney in 24 sheets at a scale of 2 chains to the inch (1:1584). The sheets were prepared by staff of the City Engineers Department.

The map dates from 1938-39 and 1948-50. The gap between the two bursts of activity is accounted for not by the intervening war years but by the expansion of the City of Sydney local government area from 1 January 1949.

Before 1949 the City’s boundaries had remained almost stationery since 1842. Except for trivial changes of a foot or two here and there, the only amendments were the absorption of the Moore Park area in 1870 and Camperdown municipality in 1908. However under the Local Government (Areas) Act 1948 – a scaled back attempt at large scale local government reform by the McKell government – the City absorbed a ring of surrounding municipalities: Paddington, Redfern, Alexandria, Waterloo, Erskineville, Newtown, Glebe, and Darlington.

The map sheets originally created in 1938-39 therefore had to be extended to cover the new boundaries of the City, and so the original twelve sheets became 24.

The Civic Survey appears to have been created as a town planning tool. The Council established a City Improvement and Planning Committee in 1936, and appointed a Town Planning Assistant (to the City Engineer) in 1938. The post-war sheets are marked as created by the Town Planning Branch of the City Engineer’s Department.

Each map sheet shows streets and open spaces, with property boundaries and rudimentary building footprints. Heights of building (in storeys) are indicated. Street numbers are not always given. Contour lines are shown at five-foot intervals, information not usually found on maps of the City area.

The Civic Survey was rendered obsolete by the City Building Surveyor’s detail sheets, from the late 1950s. The Archives has been able to assemble only one complete set of the Civic Survey sheets, comprising partly originals on drafting linen and partly later copies on plastic film.