Reading OS maps - Intro

Unfold an Ordnance Survey map and you are holding a whole landscape on one sheet of paper. Every hill, stream, church and footpath is on it. The sheet is flat, yet it still shows you how high the land is and how steep it climbs. Thin brown lines carry all of that, once you can read them. Every course sets questions on an OS map, at both of the usual scales. This chapter teaches you to read one from scratch.

Here is the chapter. It is a ladder, so each video stands on the ones before it. The first time through, watch them in order.

Grid references, scale, distance and direction on an OS map is the bottom rung, and every later video leans on it. If maps are new to you, this is where you start. One slip there is giving four figures when the question asks for six. Another is measuring a distance correctly, then converting it to kilometres wrongly. OS map symbols: reading the key and spotting features comes next. It sorts what nature made from what people made. The slip there is calling a quarry or a reservoir physical, just because it looks natural. Contours, spot heights, gradient and isoline maps is the one that turns flat paper into hills and valleys. If you can find a grid square but the brown lines lose you, go here. A slip there is giving one height when the question wants the difference between two. Cross sections and transects: drawing the shape of the land builds straight on the contours video. Some courses ask you to finish a section. Others show a transect across sand dunes or a worn footpath. Joining the first point to the last with one straight line is the slip to avoid. Reading a landscape from an OS map: relief, settlement, land use and tourism puts every skill together on one map. Not every course sets it, so check your own specification first. Describing today's roads, when the question asks about the land a settlement was first built on, is the mistake there. Every video can be searched by its name or its code. The quickest way is the scholafly.com website, which indexes every video in every subject. Whatever your course, the place to begin is grid references, scale, distance and direction.

Next in the chapter is Grid references, scale, distance and direction on an OS map. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly G E oh two, oh one.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.