In 1910, a team of surveyors worked in Australia's rugged mountain country to mark the national capital.
More than a century later, more than 60 field books used to record their work have been accepted for inclusion on the UNESCO Australia Memory of the World Register.
The field books will be available for online viewing after they are added to the register on Friday, April 14.
Territory Records Office director Danielle Wickman said she was excited to see the records displayed on the register alongside the Mabo case manuscripts and the designs for the city of Canberra produced by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.
Stored in the records service repository in Mitchell the field books are the ultimate source of survey work within the territory.
Upon inspection of the field books, the most noticeable features are squiggly lines and mathematical equations denoting map borders.
Ms Wickman knows the records better than just about anyone, and she says the squiggly lines all come back to water supply.
"It had to protect the water supply for the territory, they didn't want get into arguments later on about whether NSW managed the water supply for the new territory," she said.
"The reason for all those squiggly lines is because it's following the ridge lines to make sure the water was flowing into the territory,"
Even after a century of urban development, the original survey borderlines ensure the ACT has access to key river system, notably the Cotter and Gudgenby Rivers.
The Canberra Bushwalking Club will host the Stories from the Border event where walkers will retrace the surveyor's footsteps along parts of the ACT border using copies of the field books.
The 67 historic ACT border survey field books are first records from the ACT Territory Records Office to be accepted into the Australia Memory of the World Register.
A wealth of archives are being stored in the Territory Records Office and Ms Wickman hopes the field books will be the first of many entries.
"If you think about all of the functions and activities that the ACT government performs, there are historical records about those things that are somewhere in this building," she said.
"They should be available for the public to see and that's our role to help people to find them and see them."
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