Topographical Maps Class 11 PDF: NCERT Geography Chapter 5

Two of these landforms come with figures in the book. The U-shaped valley (NCERT, p. 57) is formed by strong lateral erosion of glaciers at high altitudes. Its flat wide bottom and steep sides make it resemble the letter U, and the innermost contour shows a wide gap between its two sides, with values increasing outward at uniform intervals.

The waterfall (NCERT, p. 59) is a sudden and more or less perpendicular descent of water in the bed of a river, where contours merge into one another while crossing the river stream. Rapids — cascading streams before or after a waterfall — are shown by relatively distant contour lines.

Conical hill, plateau, V-shaped valley, gorge, spur and cliff are each drawn in the book on pages 56–59 — match the patterns above against those drawings in your copy to fix them in memory.

How to Draw a Cross-Section from Contours

A cross-section turns contour lines into a side view of the ground — the shape you would see if the earth were cut along a straight line. The glossary defines it as a side view of the ground cut vertically along a straight line, also called a section or profile (NCERT, p. 50).

The chapter gives eight steps for drawing one (NCERT, p. 60):

1. Draw a straight line cutting across the contours and mark it AB.
2. Take a strip of white paper or graph paper and place its edge along AB.
3. Mark the position and value of every contour that cuts the line AB.
4. Choose a suitable vertical scale — the book’s own example uses half a centimetre = 100 metres — and draw horizontal lines parallel to AB, each equal to its length. The number of lines should be equal to or more than the total contour lines.
5. Number the horizontal lines starting from the lowest contour value.
6. Place the edge of the marked paper along the bottom line so that AB on the paper matches AB on the map, and mark the contour points.
7. Draw perpendiculars from the marked points down to the corresponding horizontal lines.
8. Join all the marked points smoothly.

Worked example. Suppose line AB crosses contours valued 200, 250, 300, 350, 350, 300, 250 and 200 m, at a contour interval of 50 m. Take a vertical scale of 1 cm = 100 m:

• The lowest value is 200 m, so number the horizontal lines 200, 250, 300 and 350 — four lines in all.
• At 1 cm = 100 m, each 50 m contour step puts the next line 0.5 cm higher: 350 m sits 1.5 cm above the 200 m base line.
• Each crossing point from the paper strip drops to its matching value line, so the 200 m points land on the base line and both 350 m points land together on the top line.
• Joining the points smoothly gives a profile that climbs evenly from 200 m at A to a flat crest at 350 m in the middle, then descends symmetrically back to 200 m at B.

The vertical scale is your choice and need not match the map’s horizontal scale — the book’s own example makes that point (NCERT, p. 60).

Cultural Features: Settlements, Transport and Communication

Contours give you the relief; conventional signs give you the works of people. This section is about the settlements, roads and railways a sheet records, and what their patterns reveal.

Cultural features — settlements, buildings, roads and railways — are shown on topographical sheets through conventional signs, symbols and colours (NCERT, p. 61). The location and distribution pattern of these features help in understanding the area of the map.

• Rural settlements come in four types: compact, scattered, linear and circular (NCERT, p. 61).
• Linear settlements spread along a river valley, road, embankment or coastline (NCERT, p. 61).
• Density of settlement is directly related to food supply (NCERT, p. 61).

Urban centres are distinguished as a cross-road town, nodal point, market centre, hill station, coastal resort centre, port, manufacturing centre with satellite towns, capital town and religious centre (NCERT, p. 61).

A cross-road town is fan-shaped, with houses arranged along the roads and the crossing at the heart of the town and its main market; in a nodal town the roads radiate in all directions (NCERT, p. 61).

Five factors determine the site of a settlement: source of water, provision of food, nature of relief, nature and character of occupation, and defence. The chapter’s advice is to read the site against the contour and drainage map, because settlement patterns are best understood by comparing the settlement map with the contour map (NCERT, p. 61).

Transport and communication patterns are shaped directly by relief, population, size and resource development of an area, and are depicted through conventional signs. The means include national or state highways, district roads, cart tracks, camel tracks, footpaths, railways, waterways, major communication lines and post offices (NCERT, p. 62–63).

Interpreting a Topographical Sheet, Step by Step

Reading a sheet is naming features; map interpretation is explaining the causal relationships among the features shown on the map (NCERT, p. 63). For example, natural vegetation and cultivated land are understood better against the background of landform and drainage, and settlements against transport and topography.

A topographic sheet is usually interpreted under five heads (NCERT, p. 62–63):

Occupation is identified with the help of land use and the type of settlement: in rural areas the main occupation is agriculture, in tribal regions lumbering and primitive agriculture, in coastal areas fishing, and in cities and towns services and business (NCERT, p. 63).

The interpretation procedure of the chapter, applicable to any sheet (NCERT, p. 63–64):

1. From the index number of the sheet, locate the area in India and read its general physiographic character; note the scale and the contour interval.
2. Trace the following on tracing sheets: (a) major landforms from contours; (b) drainage and water features — the main river and its tributaries; (c) land use — forest, agricultural land, wastes, sanctuary, park, school; (d) settlement and transport patterns.
3. Describe the distributional pattern of each feature separately, drawing attention to the most important aspect.
4. Superimpose pairs of these maps and note the relationship — a contour map placed over a land-use map, for instance, gives the relationship between the degree of slope and the type of land used.
5. Aerial photographs and satellite imageries of the same area and scale can be compared with the sheet to update the information.

Definitions: The Chapter’s Key Terms in Plain Words

These are the chapter’s own terms rewritten in student-friendly words. Use the table as a quick lookout while you practise the exercises.

Common Mistakes: Where Students Slip on Contours and Topo Sheets

These five errors come straight from the chapter’s own content — each is named on the page shown — and every one has a simple fix.

Exam Notes: The Skills the Chapter Exercises Test

The chapter’s exercises together test one skill family: naming features from contour patterns, converting scales, reading a real sheet, and drawing conventional signs. The map of the exercises below shows what each demands.

Worked scale conversion. Exercise B asks for 1:50,000 as a statement of scale. A representative fraction of 1:50,000 means \(1\ \text{cm}\) on the map represents \(50{,}000\ \text{cm}\) on the ground. Dividing by 100 gives \(500\ \text{m}\), or \(0.5\ \text{km}\). So: one centimetre on the map represents 500 metres (half a kilometre) on the ground (NCERT, p. 65).

The extract for Exercises B and C is sheet 63K/12 at R.F. 1:50,000, covering the Mirzapur and Varanasi districts (NCERT, p. 66). Practise with this method: locate the Ganga first, then the settlements strung along its banks, then check each feature the question names against the legend of conventional signs.

Where the chapter does not print an answer — for example, what the yellow colour on the sheet refers to, or how the people of Bhatauli cross the river — the method is the same: read the legend and examine the symbols at the spot.

The features Exercise C names, such as the Ganga, the nalas Kuardari, Sipu and Jamtihwa, and the Lower Khajuri Dam, are all printed features of this sheet (NCERT, p. 67–68).

One honest note: textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical. Check the current official CBSE syllabus to confirm which parts of this chapter are examinable this session.

Quick Recap: Topographical Maps in Ten Points

A night-before recap of the chapter’s load-bearing ideas, all grounded in the chapter’s own pages.

• A topographical map is a general-purpose map at a relatively large scale showing natural and cultural features; the Survey of India prepares India’s sheets (NCERT, p. 49).
• Sheets come in two series: India and Adjacent Countries Series, and International Map Series of the World (NCERT, p. 50).
• Five scales are used: 1:10,00,000; 1:250,000; 1:1,25,000; 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 (NCERT, p. 50).
• Contours are imaginary lines joining places of equal elevation above mean sea level (NCERT, p. 53).
• The contour interval is constant for a given map; the horizontal equivalent varies with the slope (NCERT, p. 53).
• Close spacing means steep, wide spacing means gentle, merging contours mean vertical features such as cliffs and waterfalls (NCERT, p. 53).
• Landforms are contour patterns: conical hill, plateau, V- and U-shaped valleys, gorge, spur, cliff, waterfall and rapids (NCERT, p. 56–59).
• The five slope types are gentle, steep, concave, convex and irregular or undulating (NCERT, p. 54–55).
• A cross-section is a side view of the ground along a straight line, drawn in eight steps from line AB to a smooth join (NCERT, p. 60).
• Interpretation runs under six heads: marginal information, relief and drainage, land use, transport and communication, settlement, and occupation (NCERT, p. 62–63).

The contour rule card below collects the patterns in one glance:

Related Resources

This chapter sits inside the Class 11 Geography (Practical Work in Geography) book. The chapter before it, Map Projections (Chapter 4 of this book), builds the map skills this chapter assumes, and the chapters that follow it continue the same practical work in the book.

The related physical-geography chapter Landforms and Their Evolution explains where the valleys, gorges and spurs seen on these sheets come from. For the wider set of chapters, see the Class 11 hub and the CBSE notes index.

All official NCERT textbook files, including this chapter’s PDF, are published on the NCERT website.

Reference: NCERT Class 11 Geography textbook (Practical Work in Geography), Chapter 5, official edition on ncert.nic.in.

Sources and Data Verification

• This page describes NCERT’s Practical Work in Geography, Class 11, Chapter 5, “Topographical Maps”, as printed in the 2026-27 edition. Page numbers cited refer to that edition.
• It covers this one book. The other Class 11 Geography books (Fundamentals of Physical Geography and India: Physical Environment) are not described here.
• The page is maintained for the 2026-27 academic session.
• NCERT settles textbook editions, chapter contents and official PDFs; CBSE settles the curriculum, syllabus and examinations. Textbook contents and the examinable syllabus are not always identical.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between the contour interval and the horizontal equivalent?

The contour interval (or vertical interval, V.I.) is the vertical distance between two successive contours — for example 20, 50 or 100 metres — and it is constant for a given map. The horizontal equivalent (H.E.) is the horizontal distance between the same two contours, and it varies with the slope: large on gentle slopes, decreasing as the slope steepens (NCERT, p. 53).

How can I tell a V-shaped valley from a spur on a topographical map?

In a V-shaped valley the innermost contour has the lowest value and a very small gap between its two sides, and the V points toward the higher ground. In a spur the V is reversed: the arms of the V point to the higher ground and the apex points to the lower ground (NCERT, p. 57–58).

Check where the lowest contour value sits and which way the V points.

Do closely spaced contours mean a steep slope or a gentle slope?

They mean a steep slope. Closely spaced contours represent steep slopes and widely spaced contours represent gentle slopes (NCERT, p. 53). Spacing tells you the steepness, not the height — the height comes from the contour values.

How do I convert the scale 1:50,000 into a statement of scale?

1:50,000 means \(1\ \text{cm}\) on the map equals \(50{,}000\ \text{cm}\) on the ground. Since \(50{,}000\ \text{cm} = 500\ \text{m}\), the statement is: one centimetre on the map represents 500 metres (half a kilometre) on the ground. This is the conversion Exercise B asks for (NCERT, p. 65).

Which organisation prepares the topographical maps of India and at what scales?

The Survey of India, the National Mapping Organisation of India, prepares the topographical maps of the country. They are drawn in two series — the India and Adjacent Countries Series and the International Map Series of the World — at five scales: 1:10,00,000, 1:250,000, 1:1,25,000, 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 (NCERT, p. 49–50).