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Relief and Contour Lines
Relief and contours
How do we show height on maps?
Like any piece of paper, maps are flat, but the land they cover is often quite hilly. Contour lines are a map’sway of showing how high the land is. They join together points of equal height and never cross.When contour lines appear close together, this means the land slopes sharply and would be steep to climb.The further apart the contour lines are, the flatter the land will be.If you take some time to look at the contour lines on a map, you will soon get an idea in your mind of what the land actually looks like in real life. Contour lines often form distinct patterns that are useful to recognise.


View this video on contour lines