The development of land surveying in the early modern Dutch Republic was heavily influenced by two key issues: the Dutch Revolt against Spain and the institutionalization of land surveying at the universities of Leiden, Franeker and Groningen. This talk for 'Maps & Society' at the Warburg Institute in London, sheds light on the educational patterns of land surveying in the northern provinces of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe and the self-fashioning of the surveying trade.