In 1974, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources developed the Ontario Basic Mapping (OBM) Project to collect accurate, up to date information about the built and natural environment for the purpose of land management.

At the same time the Ontario Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Real Property Registration Branch, was laying the foundation for an automated land records database which became the POLARIS project (Province of Ontario LAnd Registration Information System).

In 1983, Oxford County participated in the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources User's Needs Study: Land-Related Information Systems, Municipal Report. The results of the report emphasized the need:

• for an updated parcel database;
• to associate various data graphically or visually;
• to establish new relations efficiently among existing municipal data using topological overlay techniques.

In 1985, the County of Oxford and the City of Woodstock began to create the LRIS with the dual goals of integrating a variety of land-related databases and providing access to this data to municipal and county staff throughout Oxford County. Municipal decision-making could be optimized to be more timely and more informed through use of data produced by the integration of these databases.

Work on the system has continued to the present day, enhancing its capabilities, broadening the types of data that are available for municipal staff to use, and modernizing the technology that is used to provide services.