The Americas

47 records from Mexico, the United States, Central America and the southern cone — the region of large published acreage and large qualifications attached to it.

Amanera reports two thousand acres on the Dominican north coast, of which the golf course alone is about three hundred and seventy and the resort's own mountain sits across a public highway. Hualalai's eight hundred and sixty acres cover a hotel, a golf course and a residential neighbourhood under one master plan. Lanai is the sharpest case: the hotel holds thirty-six acres, and the hotel's owner holds ninety-eight per cent of an inhabited island of ninety thousand. The numbers are real and none of them means what it first appears to.

The region also carries the register's plainest examples of public right inside private ground. Hawaii guarantees shoreline access and an old trail crosses Hualalai. Mexico's federal maritime zone means Esencia holds the land behind the sand and not the sand. Both facts are on the record.

What the Americas do not offer in this collection is a small estate. The holdings here are measured in hundreds of acres and run as operations; a reader looking for twenty keys on two hectares should read the Mediterranean.