Hachure map

A Confederate position map of the First Battle of Manassas from the American Civil War. Includes some troop positions and lists of Confederate regiments with the names of their commanders. Relief shown by hachures. Scale [1:63,360].
For broader coverage of this topic, see Terrain cartography.

Hachures (/ˈhæʃʊərz/) are an older mode of representing relief. They show orientation of slope, and by their thickness and overall density they provide a general sense of steepness. Being non-numeric, they are less useful to a scientific survey than contours, but can successfully communicate quite specific shapes of terrain. They are a form of shading, although different from the one used in shaded maps.

Hachure representation of relief was standardized by the Austrian topographer Johann Georg Lehmann in 1799.[1] Hachures may be combined with other ways of representing relief, such as shades, the result being a shaded hachure map; an example of such a map is the Dufour Map of Switzerland.[2] Emil von Sydow designed maps with coloured hachures: green for lowlands and brown for highlands.

  1. ^ Patrick J Kennelly and A Jon Kimerling (2001). "New Tools Produce Classic Cartographic Effects". Retrieved 2010-07-22.
  2. ^ Dufour Map from The Federal Office of Topography of Switzerland  uc as Archived January 10, 2008, at the Wayback Machine