2/26/2024 0 Comments Contour lines geographyBy applying a few simple principles you can learn a lot about the 'lay of the land' from contour lines. At the very least you should be able to tell if you have to walk up a mountain or if it is flat ground all the way. With practice you can look at a map and envisage the landscape as it should appear in real life. Walking, route planning, direction finding or position locating require a basic understanding of contour lines. So what good are they?Ĭontour lines are invaluable in certain situations. ![]() Only a few contours are actually marked with a number. On an Ordnance Survey Landranger 1:50 000 map, the contours are spaced at 10 metre intervals. You will find that not every contour line is marked with an actual value. They therefore operate on a similar principle to Isobars and Isotherms in meteorology, where each line represents a particular pressure or temperature and each point on that same line has the same pressure/temperature. Every point on that contour line is at the same height above sea level. MC 99/91Ī contour line represents a particular height above a fixed point (sea level) in metres. Reproduced by kind permission of the Ordnance Survey. Well the trivial answer is that they are those faint brown lines all over your Ordnance Survey map. What are contour lines? Reproduced by kind permission of the Ordnance Survey. These are coated with a special waterproof material and prove to be very useful in the poorest of weathers. Weatherproof, Tough & Durable, Anti-glare, Write on/Wipe off, Lightweight AQUA3®Īqua 3 sell special all weather maps. ![]() In order to show this (very important!) information on the map we use contour lines. ![]() A map with fully featured bumps and lumps like those you may have seen in your school geography classes is a bugger to fold up!). It is next to impossible to represent this directly onto a map (The major problem being that it is impractical. In real life the landscape around you is full of (Three dimensional) features, rolling hills, sudden drops, gentle inclines, steep spurs and flat farmland. MC 99/91 IntroductionĬontour lines are a way of representing height and structure on a flat map.
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