External reference
CSG GIS Portal.
The Office of the Chief Surveyor-General's national cadastral GIS portal, published by the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD). GEC references it to confirm site boundaries, general plans and registered diagrams before design work starts.
What the Office of the Chief Surveyor-General does
The Chief Surveyor-General (CSG) is the government office responsible for South Africa's cadastral survey system: the network of general plans, diagrams and survey records that defines every registered erf, farm portion and servitude in the country. Every property boundary that eventually appears in a Deeds Office title is first approved and archived by the CSG under the Land Survey Act 8 of 1997 and the Deeds Registries Act. The CSG sits within DALRRD, alongside the National Geo-Spatial Information (NGI) directorate that produces South Africa's topographic mapping and aerial imagery.
What the portal gives you
The GIS portal is CSG's public-facing map viewer for that cadastral archive, built on Esri ArcGIS Experience Builder. It lets anyone search and view registered cadastral boundaries and general plan references across all nine provinces, without needing a Deeds Office account or a professional land surveyor login. It is a discovery and cross-reference layer, not a certified survey product: a registered land surveyor's diagram and a Deeds Office search remain the authoritative record for any legal or registration purpose.
Why GEC references it
Cadastral boundaries sit upstream of most civil and structural work. Before a foundation layout, a stormwater design, or a wayleave application goes to an authority, the site's registered boundary, general plan number and any registered servitudes need to be confirmed against the cadastral record, not just a client-supplied site plan. The CSG portal is the fastest public way to do that first check.
- Confirming an erf or farm portion's registered boundary and general plan (SG) number before a structural or civil layout is finalised.
- Checking for registered servitudes, rights of way or subdivisions that could affect a foundation, stormwater route, or wayleave corridor.
- Cross-referencing a site against neighbouring cadastral parcels for boundary or encroachment queries on infrastructure and precinct projects.
- A starting reference point for government precinct, disposal and acquisition work, alongside the surveyed site information supplied by the client or the relevant authority.
Using the map
The portal opens on a national map with a search panel and a layer/bookmark list. To find a specific site: use the search tool for a farm, erf or SG diagram reference, or zoom and pan to the area and use the layer panel to switch between cadastral boundaries, general plans and other published layers. Bookmarked views (the views=Layer parameter in the link above) jump straight to a saved layer configuration instead of the default view.
This is a third-party government system that GEC does not operate or maintain: availability, layer accuracy and functionality are outside GEC's control. Treat anything read from it as a discovery reference only; confirm registered boundaries, diagrams and servitudes that matter to a design or legal decision through a registered land surveyor and a Deeds Office search.