GRADE 10 MAP WORK NOTES

WEEK 1

ORTHOPHOTO MAP 1:10000

HOW HEIGHT IS SHOWN ON ORTHOPHOTO MAP
IDENTIFYING FEATUERS

How to learn conventional signs

There are three ways of grouping conventional signs to make the learning easier. Why not try all
three

and then choose the one that suits you.

A. THREE TYPES OF SYMBOL

1. Point symbols - buildings, dipping tanks, trigonometrical beacons

2. Line symbols - railways, roads, power lines, telephone lines

3. Area symbols - cultivation, orchards and vineyards, pans

B. SIX COLOUR GROUPS

1. Brown: land or earth features - contours, eroded areas, prominent rock outcrops, sand areas and
dunes, secondary or gravel roads
2. Blue: water features - aqueducts, canals, furrows and siphons, coastlines, dams, lakes, marshes,
swamps and vleis, pans, rivers, water-towers; national

freeways are also shown in blue

3. Green: vegetation features - cultivated fields, golf courses, nature and game reserve boundaries,
state forest boundaries, orchards and vineyards, recreation grounds, woodland

4. Black: construction features - roads, tracks, railways, buildings, bridges, cemeteries,

communication towers, dam walls, excavations and mine dumps, telephone lines, power lines, wind
pumps, wrecks, ruins, trigonometrically beacons, boundaries

5. Grey: construction features - built-up areas, cadastral information

6. Red: construction features - national, arterial and main roads, lighthouses and marine lights; pink
also shows international boundaries

C. FIVE ELEMENTS

1. Relief - contours, spot heights, trigonometrical stations

2. Water - lakes, rivers, waterholes, reservoirs

3. Vegetation - cultivation, orchards and vineyards, forests, plantations, woodland

4. Man-made - communication lines, settlements

5. Political - boundaries
TOPOGRAPHIC MAP 1:50000

NATURAL, CONSTRUCED (MAN MADE) FEATUERS

READING MAPS (identifying, recognizing and describing)

Map reading involves identifying points, patches and lines on a map.

The following guide will help you build up a general description of an area:
1. Position

Latitude and longitude, proximity to noticeable features either physical or human, especially a
nearby urban area.

2. Area

The approximate size of the area being described.

Natural landscape feature:

3. Relief

Look for regions – uplands and lowlands, the proportions, the highest point and the lowest point,
give the relief range, the general altitude landforms, trends (direction) of relief, move from general
observations to specific features.

Look for identifiable slopes – convex, concave, regular and irregular, steepness, any recognizable
surfaces.

4. Drainage

Look for a system, some idea of direction, identify drainage basins, density of river network, stage of
river courses (upper, middle or lower), the pattern (trellis, dendritic, radial, etc.), recognizable
features (waterfalls, rapids, braiding, etc.), if the rivers are perennial or not, modifications by man.

5. Vegetation

Some interpretation is needed now that 1 : 50 000 maps shade areas of natural vegetation in a green
wash (earlier maps indicate trees and bush) – how much of the area is covered, the relationship with
the relief (i.e. in valleys – riverine, or one side of relief), areas with no vegetation.

Human landscape features (infrastructure of developments):

6. Land use

A useful method is to consider economic activities:

a) Primary - farming (describe the type of farming: cultivation, orchards, vineyards, stock farming
with kraals, watering-places, windmills, dipping tanks, irrigation furrows, canals and pipes, farm
dams, plantations); mining (describe mine sites and proximity to communications);

-forestry (describe how this relates to relief);

- fishing (coastal maps, especially of the southern and western coasts of South Africa, show the
fishing areas).

(b) Secondary - industry (look for industrial location factors, market, raw material, power and water,
labour, flat land and transport).

(c) Tertiary - services (education, recreation, health, shops, etc.)

7. Settlement

(a) Rural - nature, size, situation, pattern is dispersed or nucleated, function.

(b) Urban - patterns, of streets, functional zones, the CBD.

8. Communications

Types (road, rail, air, water) directions, patterns, look for influence of relief (watersheds, valleys).

HEIGHT CLUES ON TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS

Contour patterns showing river valleys, hills, mountains, ridges and spurs

Height on all maps and photos is shown in metres above sea level

On the topographical map, the CONTOUR INTERVAL i.e. the VERTICAL distance between 2 contour
lines is 20 METRES.

On the orthophoto map, the CONTOUR INTERVAL, is 5 METRES

Height is used to show the following:

· Relief

· Intervisibility

· Gradient

· Cross-sections

· Vertical Exaggeration

Height is shown on maps in various ways – always in meters above sea level i.e. as altitude

· Contour lines

· Spot heights

· Trigonometrical beacons

· Bench marks
SCALE AND MEASURING DISTANCE ON TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS USING LINE AND RATIO SCALES

Distance and Scale

Scale on South African topographical maps is always a Representative Fraction –1:50 000

1:50 000 means 1cm represents 0,5 kms

1 cm represents 500 meters

Therefore - ON TOPOGRAPHICAL MAPS

TO FIND AN ANSWER IN KMS, MEASURE IN CMS AND DIVIDE BY 2

TO FIND AN ANSWER IN METRES, MEASURE IN CMS AND MULTIPLY BY 500

Scale on the Orthophoto map is always a Representative Fraction - 1 : 10 000

1: 10 000 means 1cm repr 0,1 kms

1 cm repr 100 meters

Therefore - ON ORTHOPHOTO MAPS

TO FIND AN ANSWER IN KMS, MEASURE IN CMS AND DIVIDE BY 10

TO FIND AN ANSWER IN METRES, MEASURE IN CMS AND MULTIPLY BY 100

If the distance is not a straight line, use a chain, a piece of string or a compass to measure.

CO-ORDINATES TO LOCATE FEATURES

Map Referencing / Co-ordinates

This is the method of finding any point on the map

5.1 LATITUDE AND LONGITUDE

This is the method of finding the co-ordinates of a place.

SOUTH AFRICA IS ALWAYS ONLY SOUTH AND EAST

Remember, Latitude and Longitude is measured in degrees, minutes and tenths of a minute

(or seconds).

Latitude is ALWAYS stated first and Longitude second.

If you do not say South and East, you get NO marks.

orthophoto maps and aerial photographs:

• Describe landscape

• Identify land use

• Settlement patterns – identify shape, size, location

Photograph Interpretation

A vertical photograph taken from an altitude of several thousand metres can be quite confusing,
particularly if you have not experienced such a view from an aircraft. You will have to practise in
order to develop interpretation and recognition skills.

Orthophoto maps have contours and other information on them as well as which, features are closer
andso easier to identify:

The following ideas will help you:

Shape

Geometric shapes indicate man-made objects. Railway lines appear as thin lines with gentle curves
and gradual junctions. Roads are wider and have right-angle junctions. Cultural features are regular
and havea definite pattern. Railway yards and cloverleaf flyovers on motorways are easily
identifiable. Natural features are irregular, such as rivers which have winding confluences.
Size

Buildings can look the same in shape but their size indicates the difference between a small hut, a
house and a factory. Road width is usually clear.

Shadow

Tall, thin objects, such as church steeples, telegraph poles, lighthouses and factory chimneys, may be
too small to be seen from directly above. Their shadows show their positions and shapes.

However, long shadows obscure certain features, so photographs are not taken too early or too late
in the day. The best time is two hours before and two hours after noon.

Shadows also indicate direction and this helps the reader to orientate a photograph. In the southern
hemisphere shadows generally point southwards as the sun lies to the north..

Problem: The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Vertical aerial photographs are taken two
hours before and two hours after noon. Which way would the shadows point at those times?

(Answer: In the morning the shadows will point slightly south-west and in the afternoon they will
point slightly south-east.)

Do not automatically expect the top of an aerial photograph to be north. North at the top is a
mapping convention and a photograph is not a map.

In the case of the Orthophoto map, north is at the top.

If the aircraft flies east-west and then west-east, work out why the printing on the photographs is
sometimes the right way up and sometimes upside down.

Vertical Exaggeration

This is used as the vertical scale must be exaggerated because, if the horizontal scale were

used for the vertical, the relief would show as an almost flat line on a cross-section.

Formula: Vertical Exaggeration = Vertical Scale (Given on the cross-section)

Horizontal Scale (1cm repr 50 metres)

Eg Vertical Scale = 1 cm repr 20 metres

Convert to cms (an RF) by multiplying by 100

i.e. 1 : 2 000

VE = 1 1_

20 500

VE = 1_ 500

20 x 1

VE = 25 times

ALWAYS WORK IN METRES, IT IS MUCH EASIER