Land Claim
Land claims are a legal declaration of desired control over areas of property including bodies of water. The phrase is usually only used with respect to disputed or unresolved land claims. Some types of land claims include aboriginal land claims, Antarctic land claims, and post-colonial land claims.
Land claims is sometimes used as a term when referring to disputed territories like Western Sahara or to refer to the claims of displaced persons.
In the colonial times of the United States persons could claim a piece of land for themselves and the claim has different level of merit according to the de facto conditions:
- claim without any action on the ground
- claim with (movable) property of the claimant on the ground
- claim with the claimant visiting the land
- claim with claimant living on the land.
Today, claiming land is no longer possible, yet large plots of land with little economical value (e.g., in Alaska) can still be bought for very low prices. Also, in certain parts of the world, land can still be obtained by making productive use of it.
Read more about Land Claim: Mining Claim (United States)
Famous quotes containing the words land and/or claim:
“In that land all Is and nothing’s Ought;
No owners or notices, only birds;”
—William Robert Rodgers (1909–1969)
“It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer’s barn. The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)