A map is simply a drawing or picture of a landscape or location. Maps usually show the landscape as it would be seen from above, looking directly down. As well as showing the landscape of an area, maps will often show other features such as roads, rivers, buildings, trees and lakes. A map can allow you to accurately plan a journey, giving a good idea of landmarks and features you will pass along the route, as well as how far you will be travelling.
There are many different types of maps. The type of map you would choose depends on why you need it. If you were trying to find a certain street or building in your home town you would need a map that showed you all the smaller streets, maybe even footpaths in and around town.
If you were trekking across a mountain range you might need a map that shows a bigger area of land and tells you the heights and steepness of the mountains. If you were a pilot flying from London to Edinburgh you might need a map that has the whole of the country on a single page, with only the locations of towns and cities on it. Whichever type you choose, there are a few basic features usually found on any map, which will be explained in this leaflet.
There are some basic features that most maps will include:
Roads tend to be marked in different colours depending on the type of road depicted. Roads on a map range from thick blue lines, showing motorways, to dashed lines, indicating an unfenced minor road.
Footpaths are marked on Ordnance Survey maps in various colours. On a 1:25 000 scale OS Explorer map the public rights of way are marked in green and on a 1:50 000 scale OS Landranger map they are marked in magenta. There are various types of public rights of way and public access, so please check the map key for full information. It is important to be aware that footpaths that are shown in black are not necessarily public rights of way.
Woods are shown in green with a coniferous or non‑coniferous tree shape printed over the top. • Buildings are marked by small brown squares outlined in black. However, some particular buildings have their own special symbols, such as churches and windmills. Any of these buildings can be useful landmarks, helping you to check your position on the map.
Rivers and streams are shown as blue lines. The width of the line is representative of the watercourse width (if the width of a river is more than 8 metres it is shown as two blue lines with a light blue area between). Rivers and streams can be extremely useful in determining your position on a map.
Scale tells you how much the land has been scaled down to fit on the paper. If the scale of a map is 1:50 000 then everything on the map will be 50,000 times smaller than it is in reality.
Your Ordnance Survey map will also contain other features and information that will be explained, along with the features above, in the key of the map.