How to Make a Contoured Landscape Map

Mapmaking skills are essential for navigating a foreign landscape or transversing difficult terrain. This indispensable skill can be learned through observing landscape features, usually from the highest point of the area to be mapped. Creating a contoured landscape map for an area with multiple rises and declines in elevation can be a daunting task, but the basic process is relatively simple.

Things You'll Need

• Paper and pencil

Instructions

1. Survey the area for which you wish to make a map. Find the highest point on the landscape to be mapped and observe elevation changes, valleys or steep inclines radiating away from the high point. Draw a rough topographical sketch to work from.

2. Draw a small oval shape with thin lines radiating away from the central point. The oval shape will mark the highest point of the landscape, and the thin lines will represent changes in elevation. Mark other peaks or rises in elevation with another small oval and repeat the process until all elevation points are contoured.

3. Find the elevation of the high point and write it down on the small oval. Label the elevation of every other radiated line down to the base elevation of your mapped area. For example, if your base elevation is 645 feet above sea level, this is your stopping point.

References

• Contoured maps
• Map activities
• Mapmaking