WHAT ARE LAND FEATURES?

Land features are landforms with distinct shapes, such as hills, valleys and mountains. You recognise these as you look around your natural environment. On topographic maps you recognise land features from the patterns formed by the contour lines.

WHY IS IT USEFUL TO RECOGNISE LAND FEATURES?

By recognising land features, we understand our natural environment. This is useful for a wide range of activities including:

  • planning housing estates, freeway routes and reservoirs

  • organising outdoor recreational pursuits such as orienteering, trail-biking and flying

  • managing hazards such as flooding.
The map below shows a simple topographic map including a spur, cliff, valley and plateau. These land features are identified by the way the contour lines come together to create shapes on the map.

Recognising land features on a map involves identifying the shapes created by the pattern of contours.

READING CONTOUR LINES


By reading the contour lines an understanding of the shape of the land is obtained. Land features are identified from the contour lines.

You will need:
  • a topographic map.

Procedure:Use the contour lines to identify land features.

STEP 1

Look at the contour lines on figure 1. You will see that sometimes the lines are close together and sometimes the lines are further apart. Identify two areas where this is the case.

STEP 2

Using your hand, create the shape of a hill. For every 50 metres increase of the hill slope, move your hand higher and at each step visualise that this is the next contour line on a map.

Try this for some other landforms that you are familiar with, such as a valley or a beach cliff.

Did you recognise that if the contours are close together then the shape of the land is steep, and if the contours are further apart then the land is flatter?

STEP 3

Landforms have distinctive shapes with contours, which a geographer recognises on a topographic map as a particular land feature. Use figure 1 as a guide to understanding the shapes on maps as land features. Create your own hand models of the shape of each land features.

The video below explains how to read and understand a topographic map. 

TASK SIX

Click here for a pdf map of Yarra Yarra Creek Basin, New South Wales, to identify the following landforms.

  1. Ridge

  2. Wide valley

  3. Very steep slope

  4. Spot height of 635 metres

  5. Spur

  6. Plateau

  7. Saddle

Questions
  1. Which slope of Morgans Ridge would be the most difficult to climb?

  2. What two natural features can be seen from Morgans Ridge to the east?

  3. What are the heights of the peaks on Morgans Ridge?

  4. Can you see the town of Holbrook from Wangoola? Explain your answer.

  5. What land features form part of Morgans Ridge?

CROSS SECTIONS OF TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS

Cross sections are useful for visualising the features on a topographic map.  Click here for a pdf on how to draw a cross-section

TASK SEVEN 

1. Using a local topographic map draw a cross section of a region. Match it with a photograph of the area.