Scale, or contour, conventional topographical signs are used to depict local objects whose size can be expressed on a map scale, that is, their dimensions (length, width, area) can be measured on the map. For example: lake, meadow, large gardens, residential areas. The contours (external boundaries) of such local objects are depicted on the map with solid lines or dotted lines, forming figures similar to these local objects, but only in a reduced form, that is, on the scale of the map. Solid lines show the contours of neighborhoods, lakes, and wide rivers, and the contours of forests, meadows, and swamps are dotted.
Figure 31.
Structures and buildings, expressed on the scale of the map, are depicted with figures similar to their actual outlines on the ground and are painted over in black. Figure 31 shows several on-scale (a) and out-of-scale (b) symbols.
Off-scale symbols
Explanatory topographic signs serve for additional characterization of local objects and are used in combination with large-scale and non-scale signs. For example, a figurine of a coniferous or deciduous tree inside the outline of a forest shows the dominant tree species in it, an arrow on a river indicates the direction of its flow, etc.
In addition to signs, maps use full and abbreviated signatures, as well as digital characteristics of some objects. For example, the signature “mash.” with a plant sign means that this plant is a machine-building plant. The names of settlements, rivers, mountains, etc. are fully signed.
Digital symbols are used to indicate the number of houses in rural settlements, the height of the terrain above sea level, the width of the road, the characteristics of the load capacity and the size of the bridge, as well as the size of trees in the forest, etc. Digital symbols related to conventional relief signs are printed in brown. , the width and depth of rivers are in blue, everything else is in black.
Let us briefly consider the main types of topographic symbols for depicting the area on the map.
Let's start with the relief. Due to the fact that observation conditions largely depend on its nature, the terrain's passability and its protective properties, the terrain and its elements are depicted on all topographic maps in great detail. Otherwise, we could not use the map to study and evaluate the area.
In order to clearly and completely imagine the area on the map, you must first of all be able to quickly and correctly determine on the map:
Types of unevenness of the earth's surface and their relative location;
Mutual elevation and absolute heights of any terrain points;
The shape, steepness and length of the slopes.
On modern topographic maps, the relief is depicted by horizontal lines, that is, curved closed lines, the points of which are located on the ground at the same height above sea level. To better understand the essence of depicting relief with horizontal lines, let’s imagine an island in the form of a mountain, gradually flooded with water. Let us assume that the water level sequentially stops at equal intervals, equal in height to h meters (Fig. 32).
Then each water level will have its own coastline in the form of a closed curved line, all points of which have the same height. These lines can also be considered as traces of the section of uneven terrain by planes parallel to the level surface of the sea, from which heights are calculated. Based on this, the height distance h between the secant surfaces is called the section height.
Figure 32.
So, if all lines of equal heights are projected onto the level surface of the sea and depicted to scale, then we will receive an image of the mountain on the map in the form of a system of curved closed lines. These will be the horizontal lines.
In order to find out whether it is a mountain or a basin, there are slope indicators - small lines that are drawn perpendicular to the horizontal lines in the direction of the descent of the slope.
Figure 33.
The main (typical) landforms are presented in Figure 32.
The height of the section depends on the scale of the map and the nature of the relief. The normal height of the section is considered to be a height equal to 0.02 of the map scale, that is, 5 m for a map of scale 1:25,000 and, accordingly, 10, 20 m for maps of scales 1: 50,000, 1: 100,000. Contour lines on the map corresponding to those established for below the height of the section, are drawn in solid lines and are called main or solid horizontal lines. But it happens that at a given section height, important details of the relief are not expressed on the map, since they are located between the cutting planes.
Then half semi-horizontal lines are used, which are drawn through half the main height of the section and are plotted on the map with broken lines. To determine the count of contours when determining the height of points on the map, all solid contours corresponding to five times the height of the section are drawn thickly (thickened contours). So, for a map of scale 1: 25,000, each horizontal line corresponding to the section height of 25, 50, 75, 100 m, etc. will be drawn as a thick line on the map. The main section height is always indicated below the south side of the map frame.
The altitudes of the terrain depicted on our maps are calculated from the level of the Baltic Sea. The heights of points on the earth's surface above sea level are called absolute, and the elevation of one point over another is called relative elevation. Contour marks - digital inscriptions on them - indicate the height of these terrain points above sea level. The top of these numbers always faces the upward slope.
Figure 34.
Marks of command heights, from which the terrain from the most important objects on the map (large settlements, road junctions, passes, mountain passes, etc.) is better visible than from others, are marked in large numbers.
Using contour lines you can determine the steepness of slopes. If you look closely at Figure 33, you can see from it that the distance between two adjacent contour lines on the map, called the lay (at a constant section height), changes depending on the steepness of the slope. The steeper the slope, the smaller the overlay and, conversely, the lower the slope, the greater the overlay. The conclusion follows from this: steep slopes on the map will differ in the density (frequency) of contours, and in flat places the contours will be less frequent.
Usually, to determine the steepness of the slopes, a drawing is placed in the margins of the map - depth scale(Fig. 35). Along the lower base of this scale are numbers that indicate the steepness of the slopes in degrees. The corresponding values of the deposits on the map scale are plotted on perpendiculars to the base. On the left side, the depth scale is built for the main section height, on the right - at five times the section height. To determine the steepness of the slope, for example, between points a-b (Fig. 35), you need to take this distance with a compass and put it on the scale and read the steepness of the slope - 3.5°. If it is necessary to determine the steepness of the slope between the thickened horizontal lines, then this distance must be set aside on the right scale and the steepness of the slope in this case will be equal to 10°.
Figure 35.
Knowing the properties of contours, you can determine from the map the shape of various types of slopes (Fig. 34). For a flat slope, the depths will be approximately the same throughout its entire length; for a concave slope, they increase from the top to the bottom; and for a convex slope, on the contrary, the formations decrease towards the bottom. In wavy slopes, the positions change according to the alternation of the first three forms.
When depicting relief on maps, not all of its elements can be expressed as contour lines. So, for example, slopes with a steepness of more than 40° cannot be expressed as horizontals, since the distance between them will be so small that they will all merge. Therefore, slopes that have a steepness of more than 40° and are steep are indicated by horizontal lines with dashes (Fig. 36). Moreover, natural cliffs, ravines, gullies are indicated in brown, and artificial embankments, recesses, mounds and pits are indicated in black.
Figure 36.
Let's consider the basic conventional topographical signs for local objects. Settlements are depicted on the map while maintaining external boundaries and layout (Fig. 37). All streets, squares, gardens, rivers and canals, industrial enterprises, outstanding buildings and structures of landmark significance are shown. For better visibility, fire-resistant buildings (stone, concrete, brick) are painted orange, and blocks with non-fire-resistant buildings are painted yellow. The names of settlements on maps are written strictly from west to east. The type of administrative significance of a settlement is determined by the type and size of the font (Fig. 37). Under the signature of the name of the village you can find a number indicating the number of houses in it, and if there is a district or village council in the settlement, the letters “RS” and “SS” are additionally placed.
Figure 37 - 1.
Figure 37 - 2.
No matter how poor the area is in local objects or, on the contrary, saturated, there are always individual objects on it that, by their size, stand out from the rest and are easily identified on the ground. Many of them can be used as guides. This should include: factory chimneys and prominent buildings, tower-type buildings, wind turbines, monuments, gas pumps, signs, kilometer posts, free-standing trees, etc. (Fig. 37). Most of them, due to their size, cannot be shown on the scale of the map, so they are depicted on it as out-of-scale signs.
The road network and crossings (Fig. 38, 1) are also depicted with out-of-scale symbols. Data on the width of the roadway, road surface, indicated on the conventional signs, make it possible to evaluate their throughput, load capacity, etc. Depending on the number of tracks, railways are indicated by dashes across the conventional road sign: three dashes - three-track, two dashes - double-track railway . Stations, embankments, excavations, bridges and other structures are shown on railways. For bridges longer than 10 m, its characteristics are signed.
Figure 38 - 1.
Figure 38 - 2.
Figure 39.
For example, the signature on the bridge ~ means that the length of the bridge is 25 m, the width is 6 m, and the load capacity is 5 tons.
Hydrography and structures associated with it (Fig. 38, 2), depending on the scale, are shown in greater or less detail. The width and depth of the river is written as a fraction 120/4.8, which means:
The river is 120 m wide and 4.8 m deep. The speed of the river flow is shown in the middle of the symbol with an arrow and a number (the number indicates the speed of 0.1 meters per second, and the arrow indicates the direction of the flow). On rivers and lakes, the height of the water level during low water (water line mark) in relation to sea level is also indicated. For fords it is signed: in the numerator - the depth of the ford in meters, and in the denominator - the quality of the soil (T - hard, P - sandy, V - viscous, K - rocky). For example, br. 1.2/k means that the ford is 1.2 m deep and the bottom is rocky.
Soil and vegetation cover (Fig. 39) is usually depicted on maps with large-scale symbols. These include forests, shrubs, gardens, parks, meadows, swamps, salt marshes, as well as sand, rocky surfaces, and pebbles. Its characteristics are indicated in the forests. For example, for a mixed forest (spruce with birch) the numbers are 20/\0.25 - this means that the average height of the trees in the forest is 20 m, their average thickness is 0.25 m, and the average distance between tree trunks is 5 meters.
Figure 40.
Swamps are depicted depending on their passability on the map: passable, difficult to pass, impassable (Fig. 40). Passable swamps have a depth (to solid ground) of no more than 0.3-0.4 m, which is not shown on maps. The depth of impassable and impassable swamps is written next to the vertical arrow indicating the location of the measurement. On the maps, the corresponding symbols show the cover of the swamps (grass, moss, reed), as well as the presence of forests and shrubs on them.
Lumpy sands differ from smooth sands and are indicated on the map with a special symbol. In the southern steppe and semi-steppe regions there are areas with soil richly saturated with salt, which are called salt marshes. They are wet and dry, some are impassable and others are passable. On the maps they are indicated by conventional symbols - blue “shading”. An image of salt marshes, sands, swamps, soil and vegetation cover is shown in Figure 40.
Off-scale symbols of local objects
Answer: Off-scale symbols are used to depict small local objects that cannot be expressed on a map scale - free-standing trees, houses, wells, monuments, etc. When depicting them on a map scale, they would appear in the form of a point. Examples of depicting local objects with out-of-scale symbols are shown in Figure 31. The exact location of these objects, depicted with out-of-scale symbols (b), is determined by the center of the symmetrical figure (7, 8, 9, 14, 15), in the middle of the base of the figure (10, 11) , at the top of the corner of the figure (12, 13). Such a point on the figure of an off-scale symbol is called the main point. In this figure, the arrow shows the main points of symbols on the map.
It is useful to remember this information in order to correctly measure the distance between local objects on the map.
(This question is discussed in detail in question No. 23)
Explanatory and conventional signs of local objects
Answer: Types of topographical symbols
The terrain on maps and plans is depicted by topographical symbols. All conventional signs of local objects, according to their properties and purpose, can be divided into the following three groups: contour, scale, explanatory.
Topographic maps and plans depict various terrain objects: the outlines of settlements, gardens, vegetable gardens, lakes, rivers, road lines, power transmission lines. The collection of these objects is called situation. The situation is depicted conventional signs.
Standard symbols, mandatory for all institutions and organizations preparing topographic maps and plans, are established by the Federal Service of Geodesy and Cartography of the Russian Federation and are published either separately for each scale or for a group of scales.
Conventional signs are divided into five groups:
1. Area symbols(Fig. 22) are used to fill the areas of objects (for example, arable land, forests, lakes, meadows); they consist of a sign of the boundary of an object (a dotted line or a thin solid line) and images or conventional coloring that fill it; for example, symbol 1 shows a birch forest; numbers (20/0.18) *4 characterize the tree stand, (m): numerator - height, denominator - trunk thickness, 4 - distance between trees.
Rice. 22. Area symbols:
1 - forest; 2 - cutting; 3 - meadow; 4 - vegetable garden; 5 - arable land; 6 - orchard.
2. Linear symbols(Fig. 23) show linear objects (roads, rivers, communication lines, power transmission lines), the length of which is expressed on a given scale. The conventional images show various characteristics of objects; for example, on highway 7 (m) the following are shown: the width of the carriageway is 8 and the width of the entire road is 12; on single-track railway 8: +1,800 - embankment height, - 2,900 - excavation depth.
Rice. 23. Linear symbols
7 - highway; 8 - railway; 9 - communication line; 10 - power line; 11 - main pipeline (gas).
3. Off-scale symbols(Fig. 24) are used to depict objects whose dimensions are not expressed at a given map or plan scale (bridges, kilometer posts, wells, geodetic points). As a rule, off-scale signs determine the location of objects, but their size cannot be judged from them. The signs give various characteristics, for example, the length of 17 m and the width of 3 m of wooden bridge 12, elevation 393,500 points of the geodetic network 16.
Rice. 24. Off-scale symbols
12 - wooden bridge; 13 - windmill; 14 - plant, factory;
15 - kilometer pole, 16 - geodetic network point
4. Explanatory symbols are digital and alphabetic inscriptions characterizing objects, for example, the depth and speed of river flows, load capacity and width of bridges, forest species, average height and thickness of trees, width of highways. These signs are placed on the main areal, linear, and non-scale areas.
5. Special symbols(Fig. 25) are established by the relevant departments of the national economy; they are used to draw up specialized maps and plans of this industry, for example, signs for survey plans of oil and gas fields - oil field structures and installations, wells, field pipelines.
Rice. 25. Special symbols
17 - route; 18 - water supply; 19 - sewerage; 20 - water intake column; 21 - fountain
To give a map or plan greater clarity, colors are used to depict various elements: for rivers, lakes, canals, wetlands - blue; forests and gardens - green; highways - red; improved dirt roads - orange. The rest of the situation is shown in black. On survey plans, underground communications (pipelines, cables) are colored.
Terrain and its depiction on topographic maps and plans
Terrain called a set of irregularities on the physical surface of the Earth.
Depending on the nature of the relief, the terrain is divided into mountainous, hilly, and flat. All the variety of landforms is usually reduced to the following basic forms (Fig. 26):
Rice. 26. Basic landforms
1. Mountain - a dome-shaped or conical elevation of the earth's surface. Main elements of the mountain:
a) apex - the highest part, ending either in an almost horizontal platform called a plateau, or a sharp peak;
b) slopes or slopes diverging from the top in all directions;
c) sole - the base of the hill, where the slopes pass into the surrounding plain.
The small mountain is called hill or fell; artificial hill called mound.
2. Basin- a cup-shaped, concave part of the earth's surface, or unevenness opposite the mountain.
In the basin there are:
a) bottom - the lowest part (usually a horizontal platform);
b) cheeks - lateral slopes diverging from the bottom in all directions;
c) margin - the border of the cheeks, where the basin passes into the surrounding plain. The small basin is called depression or hole.
3. Ridge- a hill elongated in one direction and formed by two opposite slopes. The line where the stingrays meet is called ridge axis or watershed line. The descending parts of the spine line are called passes.
4. Hollow- a recess extended in one direction; shape opposite to the ridge. In the hollow there are two slopes and a thalweg, or water connecting line, which often serves as the bed of a stream or river.
A large wide hollow with a slightly inclined thalweg is called valley; a narrow ravine with steep slopes that quickly descend and a thalweg cutting through the ridge is called gorge or gorge. If it is located in a plain, it is called ravine. A small hollow with almost vertical slopes is called beam, rut or gulley.
5. Saddle- a meeting place of two or more opposite hills, or opposite valleys.
6. Ledge or terrace- an almost horizontal platform on the slope of a ridge or mountain.
The top of the mountain, the bottom of the basin, the lowest point of the saddle are characteristic relief points.
The watershed and thalweg represent characteristic relief lines.
Currently, for large-scale plans, only two methods of depicting the relief are accepted: signing marks and drawing contours.
Horizontally called a closed curved line of terrain, all points of which have the same height above sea level or above a conventional level surface.
Horizontal lines are formed like this (Fig. 27). Let the hill be washed by the surface of the sea with an elevation equal to zero. The curve formed by the intersection of the water surface with a hill will be a horizontal line with an elevation equal to zero. If we mentally dissect a mountain, for example, by two level surfaces with a distance between them h = 10 m, then the traces of the section of the hill with these surfaces will give horizontal lines with marks of 10 and 20 m. If we project the traces of the section of these surfaces onto a horizontal plane in a reduced form, we will obtain a plan of the hill in horizontals.
Rice. 27. Image of the relief with horizontal lines
On the horizontal plan, the elevations and depressions have the same appearance. To distinguish a hill from a depression, short strokes are placed in the downward direction of the slope perpendicular to the horizontal lines - slope indicators. These strokes are called berg strokes. Lowering and raising the terrain can be established and the signatures of contour lines on the plan. An image of the main relief forms is presented in Figure 28.
In cases where the elements of the slope are not reflected by the section of the main horizontal lines, half-horizontals and quarter-horizontals are drawn on the plan at the height of half and a quarter of the main section.
For example, the protrusion and the bottom of the slope of a hill are not reflected by the main horizontal lines. The drawn semi-horizontal reflects the protrusion, and the quarter-horizontal reflects the bottom of the slope.
Rice. 28. Representation of the main forms of relief with horizontal lines
The main horizontal lines are drawn with thin solid lines in brown ink, semi-horizontal - broken lines, quarter horizontal - short dash-dotted line (Fig. 27). For greater clarity and convenience of counting, some horizontal lines are thickened. With a section height of 0.5 and 1 m, thicken each horizontal line that is a multiple of 5 m (5, 10, 115, 120 m, etc.), when cross-sectioning the relief through 2.5 m - horizontal lines that are multiples of 10 m (10, 20 , 100 m, etc.), with a section of 5 m, thicken the horizontal lines, multiples of 25 m.
To determine the height of the relief in the gaps of thickened and some other contours, their marks are signed. In this case, the bases of the numbers of the horizontal marks are placed in the direction of lowering the slope.
The conventional signs that we see on modern maps and plans did not appear immediately. On ancient maps, objects were depicted using drawings. Only starting from the mid-18th century, drawings began to be replaced with images of how objects look from above, or to designate objects with special signs.
Symbols and legend
Conventional signs- these are symbols indicating various objects on plans and maps. Ancient cartographers sought to convey the individual characteristics of objects using signs. Cities were depicted in the form of walls and towers, forests - with drawings of different types of trees, and instead of the names of cities, small banners depicting coats of arms or portraits of rulers were applied.
Currently, cartographers use a wide variety of symbols. They depend on the degree of detail, the coverage of the territory and the content of the cartographic image. Signs on large-scale plans and maps make them look like the objects depicted. Houses, for example, are marked with rectangles, the forest is painted green. From the plans you can find out what material the bridge is made of, what types of trees it is made of and much other information.
Values are shown in the legend. Legend an image of all symbols that are used on a given plan or map, with an explanation of their meanings. The legend helps to read the plan and map, that is, to understand their content. With the help of symbols and legends, you can imagine and describe terrain objects, find out their shape, size, some properties, and determine their geographical location.
According to their purpose and properties, symbols of plans and maps are divided into three types: linear, area and point.
Linear signs depict roads, pipelines, power lines, borders. These signs tend to exaggerate the width of the object, but accurately indicate its extent.
Area (or scale) signs serve to depict objects whose dimensions can be expressed in a given map or plan. This is, for example, a lake, a plot of forest, a garden, a field. Using a plan or map, using a scale, you can determine their length, width, and area. Area signs, as a rule, consist of an outline and characters or color filling the outline. All water bodies (fresh lakes, swamps, seas) on any plans and maps are blue. Green color on large-scale plans and maps indicates areas with vegetation cover (forests, shrubs, gardens).
Point (or out-of-scale) signs These are dots or special drawing icons. They display small objects (wells, water towers, free-standing trees on plans, settlements, deposits on maps). Due to their small size, such objects cannot be expressed to scale, so it is impossible to determine their size from a cartographic image.
Many objects that are marked with icons on maps are shown with area symbols on plans. These are, for example, cities, volcanoes, mineral deposits.
The plans and maps have many of their own geographical names, explanatory captions and digital designations. They provide additional quantitative (length and width of the bridge, depth of the reservoir, height of the hill) or qualitative (temperature, salinity of water) characteristics of objects.
Declassified topographic maps of the General Staff of the USSR are freely circulating on the Internet. We all love to download them, look at them, and often print them on sheets of paper for further use for their intended purpose - i.e. go hiking with them.
Topographic maps of the General Staff are the most accurate and best. Any other purchased maps printed in modern times will not carry as much accuracy and specificity. The symbols and symbols on the topographic maps of the General Staff are much more complex than any other symbols on maps purchased in the store. We all remember them from geography lessons at school.
As an experienced user of such maps, I would like to describe at the beginning of this article the most important, in my opinion, designations. If the rest are more or less understandable, since they are almost all identical to other types of cards (not the General Staff), then these are something new and still incomprehensible. Actually, I will start with the symbols of rivers, fords, forests and roads.
Rivers and water resources
| Speed and direction of river flow (0.6 m/s) | |
|
Characteristics of rivers and canals: 30 - Width (m), 0,8 - Depth (m), TO- Soil type ( TO - rocky, P - sand, T - solid, IN - viscous) |
 |
| Water line mark, shore height above sea level (393m) |  |
| Brody: 0,3 - depth, 10 - length, TO- rocky soil, 1,0 - speed (m/sec) |  |
| The swamp is passable |  |
| The swamp is impassable |  |
| Characteristics of bridges: D- construction material ( D - wood, TO - stone, reinforced concrete - reinforced concrete), 43 - length of the bridge, 4 - width of the roadway (m), 10 - load capacity in tons |  |
| Forest clearing and width in meters (2m) |  |
| Field and forest roads |  |
| Winter road, a functioning road only in the winter season, during the cold period. Can go through swamps. |  |
| Dirt road, 6 - width of the roadway in meters |  |
| Gat - a road with a wooden surface, a flooring made of logs, 3 - width of the roadway |  |
| Go away |  |
| Railway track |  |
| Gas pipeline |  |
| Power lines (PTL) |  |
| Dismantled railway |  |
| Single track railway, narrow gauge. Also railway bridge |  |
| Highway: 6 —width of the covered part, 8 — the width of the entire road from ditch to ditch in meters; SCH- coating material ( B - cobblestone, G - gravel, TO - crushed stone, Shl - slag, SCH - crushed stone) |  |
Relief
| Steep river banks, rocky outcrops, Parma |  |
| Relief contours with relative height designation (260 m) |  |
| Mountainous area without vegetation cover, covered with kurum stones and rock outcrops |  |
| Mountainous area with vegetation cover and sparse trees, the forest border is visible |  |
| Outlier rocks with a height in meters |  |
| Glaciers |  |
| Rocks and rocky cliffs |  |
| Elevation mark (479.2 m) |  |
| Steppe region. Near the edge of the forest |  |
| Sands, deserts |  |
Photos of some geographical objects
The main winter road laid through the taiga forest. In summer there are thickets here (Yakutia)
Forest dirt road (Ivdel district, Northern Urals)
Gat - road with wooden covering (Lobnensky forest park, Moscow region)
Rock outcrop, Parma (Stone "Giant", Middle Urals)
Remnant rocks (Old Stone rock, Middle Urals)
It should be understood that all available topographic maps of the USSR General Staff have long been outdated. The information contained on them can date back to the 70-80s of the last century. If you are interested in the details of walking along certain trails, roads, the presence of settlements and geographical objects, then you should check in advance the reliability of the information from other sources. There may no longer be any paths or roads at all. Small settlements can be abandoned and look like wastelands, often already overgrown with young growth.
But, in any case, the maps of the General Staff still provide more accurate information, and using them you can more productively calculate your route and distance. In this article, I did not bother your heads with unnecessary symbols and symbols of topographic maps. I have posted only the most important and significant for the mountain-taiga and steppe region. Those interested in details can take a look.
Maps of the USSR General Staff were made using the Soviet system of layout and nomenclature of topographic maps. This system is still used in the Russian Federation and some former Soviet republics. There are newer maps, the state of the terrain on which is approximately 60-80s of the last century, and older maps, the so-called General Staff of the Red Army, made by geodetic reconnaissance of the pre-war period. “The maps are compiled in a conformal transverse cylindrical Gauss-Kruger projection, calculated using the parameters of the Krasovsky ellipsoid for a six-degree zone,” - and if you don’t understand, it doesn’t matter! The main thing is to remember (or write down, save this article) the points that I cited above. Knowing them, you can skillfully use maps and plan your route without using GPS.
Plans and topographic maps have a unified system of symbols. This system is based on the following provisions:
- each graphic sign always corresponds to a certain type of object or phenomenon;
- each symbol has its own clear pattern;
- on and on plans that have different but similar scales, the symbols of the same objects differ, as a rule, only in size;
- in the drawings of conventional signs, techniques and means are used to ensure the reproduction of the profile or appearance of the corresponding objects on the earth's surface, facilitating the establishment of an associative connection between the sign and the object. Usually there are 10 ways to form compositions of characters.
1. Icon method.
It is used to indicate the location of objects that are not expressed in (icons of free-standing trees, buildings, deposits, settlements, tourist sites). In their form they can be geometric, alphabetic, or pictorial. In any case, these signs indicate the location of a given object, the relative position of various objects.
2.Method of linear signs.
It is used to convey objects and phenomena of linear extent that are not expressed in their width at the scale of the map. In this way, rivers, borders, and communication routes are shown on topographic maps or plans.
3. Isoline method(from the Greek “izos” - equal, identical).
This method is intended to characterize phenomena of continuous distribution on Earth that have a numerical expression - , etc. In this case, isolines are curves connecting points with the same quantitative value. Depending on what phenomenon they characterize, isolines will be called differently:
- - lines connecting points with the same temperature;
- isohists- lines connecting points with the same amount of precipitation;
- isobars- lines connecting points with the same pressure;
- isohypses- lines connecting points of the same height;
- isotachs- lines connecting points with the same speed.
4. Quality background method.
It is used to identify qualitatively homogeneous areas of the earth's surface according to natural, socio-economic, political and administrative characteristics. In this way, for example, states are shown or regions on maps of administrative division of regions, age on tectonic maps, types on soil maps or on maps of the distribution of flora.
5.Diagram method.
It is used to display any quantitative characteristics of continuous phenomena at specific points, for example, the annual variation of temperature, the amount of precipitation by month or by meteorological stations.
6. Spot method.
It is used to show mass phenomena dispersed throughout the territory. For example, this method shows the distribution of the population, sown or irrigated areas, livestock numbers, etc.
7. Method of habitats.
It is used to display the area of distribution of a phenomenon (not continuous across the field), for example, plants, animals. The graphic design of the boundary and area of the habitat contour can be very diverse, which makes it possible to characterize the phenomenon in many ways.
8. Traffic sign method.
It is designed to show various spatial movements (bird flights, travel routes, and others). Arrows and stripes are used as graphic traffic signs. Using them, you can show the path, method, direction and speed of movement of a phenomenon, as well as some other characteristics. On plans and topographic maps, this method also shows the direction of the current.
9. Mapping method.
It is usually used to show in the form of diagrams the quantitative characteristics of phenomena within individual territorial units. The method is widely used in the analysis and processing of statistical and economic indicators, such as production volume, structure, timber stock and others.
10. Cartogram method are used, as a rule, to compare the relative indicators of a phenomenon that characterize a territory as a whole. In this way, for example, they show the average population density per 1 km2 by administrative units, the average of regions, etc. This method, like the method of map diagrams, is widely used in the analysis of statistical indicators.
The very methods of depicting conventional signs contain information about what objects and phenomena they can be used for, what their possible and best combinations are when expressing one or another content of the cards. Some conventional signs cannot be combined on one map at all: for example, the point method cannot be combined on a map with the method of icons and cartograms. Icon methods work well with a cartogram. This is very important to know when using symbols.
Before creating a map of any scale, there is a selection of phenomena or objects that need to be displayed on it in the form of symbols.
Having studied the symbols well, you can then work with any topographic maps or plans. The rules for using these signs form important sections of the grammar of the language of the map or plan.
