One important element in compiling a list of surveying books used in the United States is determining when surveying was first practiced in the colonies. The beginning of the 17th century corresponds with the first lasting settlement by the English in Virginia. That event took place in 1607 and was followed by the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 whereupon the colony of Plymouth was founded. Although the question of when surveying began remains unanswered, further insight is provided in a statement appearing in John Love's Geodaesia: or, The Art of Surveying and Measuring of Land Made Easie. (1688):

- - - and if you ask, why I write a Book of this nature, since we have so many very good ones already in our own Language? I answer, because I cannot find in those Books, many things, of great consequence, to be understood by the Surveyor. I have seen Young men in America, often nonplus'd so, that their Books would not help them forward, particularly in Carolina, about Laying out Lands, when a certain quantity of Acres has been given to be laid out five or six times as broad as long. This I know is to be laught at by a Mathematician; yet to such as have no more of this Learning, than to know how to Measure a Field, it seems a Difficult Question: And to what Book already Printed of Surveying shall they repair to, to be resolved?

While the information is meager it seems certain that surveying was being practiced in the American colonies during the 17th century. Lacking evidence of earlier work it was decided to begin the present compilation with the year 1600.

Surveying book entries dated before 1800 include all English-language works that were either used or were susceptible to having been used in America. Those after 1800 are limited to ones published in the United States with the exception of a few specialty books for which no local counterpart was then available. This compilation contains instructional or "how-to" books and does not include such items as manufacturer's catalogs, etc. The inclusion of government surveying manuals is limited to individually published works having either widespread application or particular significance.