Which of these will have two contour lines of different heights?Ĥ. What does the contour value with 0 indicate?ģ. Which of the following is represented by the spacing between the contour lines? Which of the following is not used to depict relief features of any place?Ģ. The contour with zero value represents the coastline because they are exactly at sea level.ġ. The closely spaces contours indicate steep slopes.Īll contour lines are marked with a number, which indicates their height above the mean sea level in meters or in feet. Can you guess what widely spaced contour lines indicate? They indicate gentle slopes. The spacing between the contour lines indicates the nature of the slope. Also when two contour lines having different heights meet, it means that the slope is vertical like a cliff or a waterfall. If they cross, that would mean that they are at the same location, which is obviously not possible. This depends upon the slope of the Land.Ĭontourlines can never cross each other. It is useful because they show the form of the land surface on the mapits topography. The elevation and terrain shape of the contour lines shows. Similarly, the horizontal difference between the values of any two contours is called Horizontal Equivalent. Contour lines are lines drawn on a map with equal elevation points, so elevation would be constant if you followed the contour line physically. Are these lines drawn just on the basis of assumption? No, they are actually drawn by surveys done in the field.Ĭontour interval or Vertical contour refers to the difference between the value of any two successive contours. So it is actually a line of constant height above the mean sea level. And that is where Contours come into play.Ĭontour is actually an imaginary line, which joins the points or places having the same height above the mean sea level. Several methods have been developed to depict the relief features on a map like contouring, form lines, spot height, benchmarks, hachures, etc. A relief map basically shows the height of the land above the mean sea level on a flat surface. These models are difficult to make and handle and are comparatively expensive.

So how do we represent contour lines through a 3-D model? It has mountains, hills, plateaus, valleys, waterfalls, seas lakes, etc., representing the elevation and the depression on the Earth�s surface. The surface of the Earth is obviously not uniform. Contouring is the standard method for representing the relief on a map. Features like mountains, plateaus, valleys, waterfalls, seas, lakes, etc.

Contour line definition physics