Published on 20 April 2026

Historical instruments

In addition to historical maps and images, swisstopo maintains a collection of historical surveying instruments. The swisstopo instrument collection documents the instruments used by the Federal Office of Topography at various points in time. It thus serves as an important basis for understanding historical maps and photograms.

Distomat Wild DI 20 mounted on a Wild T2 theodolite, swisstopo instrument collection 1188

The collection comprises around 850 items. The oldest instruments date from the second half of the 18th century, whilst the most recent ones were only of late taken out of service. The intended use of numerous items in the collection is documented to this day. The collection thus contains important historical artefacts relating to the history of swisstopo’s production, as well as to the history of technology and industry.

The collection can be searched online: www.swisstopohistoric.findbuch.net

Photographs of the instruments can be found here (in German): Fotobestand der Instrumentensammlung des Bundesamtes für Landestopografie swisstopo | MEMOBASE von Memoriav

History of the collection

In 1901, the Federal Office of Topography acquired a number of working instruments from the estate of Antoine-Joseph Buchwalder (1792–1883), an engineer who worked for Guillaume Henri Dufour. These were listed in the inventories as ‘instruments no longer in use (Historical Collection)’, together with selected surveying instruments that could no longer be used by swisstopo, cantonal offices or private individuals.

The need to document the instruments was not limited to the Federal Office of Topography. The Federal Directorate of Cadastral Surveying and the Swiss Geological Survey also preserved instruments no longer in use. With the merger of all three administrative units by 2006, these were incorporated into the swisstopo instrument collection. In the same year, swisstopo acquired around 150 historical objects from the Institute of Geomatics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. These were linked to swisstopo’s official activities and their preservation was under threat. This small sub-collection dates back to the early days of the Ecole d’ingénieurs de Lausanne, which was founded in 1850.

Swisstopo rose to the challenge presented by this new situation and developed a framework for managing the historical collection. A collection policy has been in place since 2009.

Structure and themes

The structure of the collection reflects its history. The instruments are organised according to their field of application:

• 1000- Geodesy
• 2000- Cadastral Surveying
• 3000- Topography
• 4000- Cartography
• 5000- Swiss Geological Survey
• 9000- EPFL Donation

Accessibility

Currently, access to the collection is limited. A new collection repository is in the planning stage.

Loan enquiries can be sent to the following address: [e-mail]