page_title: Terrain cartography
section_title: Hachures
hierarchical_section_title: Terrain cartography / Hachures
caption_attribution_description: Bern auf der Dufourkarte (Ausgabe von 1907)
context_page_description: Terrain cartography or relief mapping is the depiction of the shape of the surface of the Earth on a map, using one or more of several techniques that have been developed. Terrain or relief is an essential aspect of physical geography, and as such its portrayal presents a central problem in cartographic design, and more recently geographic information systems and geovisualization.
context_section_description: Hachures, first standardized by the Austrian topographer Johann Georg Lehmann in 1799, are a form of shading using lines. They show the 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. The are especially effective at showing relatively low relief, such as rolling hills. It was a standard on topographic maps of Germany well into the 20th Century.
  There have been multiple attempts to recreate this technique using digital GIS data, with mixed results.
caption: Dufour map of Bern (1907); this is a shaded hachure map.
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