For the time being, the cantons remained responsible for land register management and surveying activities. The Land Surveyors Concordat, which was established in 1864 and issued uniform surveying regulations, was a first step towards joint responsibility. In 1912, the tasks and financing relating to the cadastral survey were shared between the federal government and the cantons following the introduction of the Swiss Civil Code and the Federal Land Registry. From that date onwards, the main purpose of the cadastral survey and entries in the land register was to protect landownership.

Surveys were carried out in the cantons, but in general these were isolated and uncoordinated. With the major urban development that began to take place around 1850, the recording of landownership rights gained higher importance than the taxation register. On 16 April 1860, the «Law on the establishment of a land register» was adopted in Basel. The experience gained there was highly influential in the creation of the Swiss Civil Code at the federal level 50 years later. 

Following the initiative of the canton of Aargau, several cantons jointly formed the Land Surveyors Concordat, which pursued the objectives of freedom of professional movement and a common system of examination of surveyors, and laid down uniform regulations for surveying procedures.

The process of cadastral mapping using plane table surveys gradually gave way to polygonal traverse procedures.

The first Swiss geodetic network (first to third order triangulation) was established in the period from 1903 to approximately 1925. It was based on around 5,000 permanent control points of the 1903 national survey (LV03). For about 100 years, this formed the geodetic reference frame for surveying activities in Switzerland. 

The form and extent of the financial contribution by the federal government towards the cost of cadastral surveying were regulated by a federal resolution dated 13 April 1910.

Together with the introduction of the Swiss Civil Code it was decided to also establish a federal land registry. This meant that the federal government was now responsible for cadastral surveying, though its implementation was delegated to the cantons. The federal government remained the supervisory authority and assumed responsibility for a large portion of the development costs. Since then, landownership has been secured via entry in the land register.

With the introduction of two regulations in 1919 – one governing the fourth order triangulation and the other governing cadastral surveying and delimitation – legal provisions specifying the method and form of surveying entered into force.

In accordance with the Resolution of the Federal Council dated 12 November 1923 on the general plan relating to the implementation of the cadastral survey (1923 cadastral surveying programme), the aim was for the cadastral survey to be completed by the end of 1976. However, the programme was severely delayed due to the promotion of land consolidation called for by the Federal Council in 1918 and the consequences of World War I.