Find out more...Understanding Topographic Maps

Topography involves studying and describing the surface features of the land. The most common way of describing the surface of the Earth is with topographic maps. These are graphic, detailed representations of the land's natural and man-made features, represented to scale.

The two main parts of a topographic map are:

• map face, showing the mapped area and information to allow the features on the map to be identified and located
• margin information, with details to help use the map, as well as explanations about when, where and how the information was compiled.

The features shown on a topographic map include:

• hydrography - rivers, lakes and swamps
• relief - contours
• vegetation - forested and cleared areas, orchards and vineyards
• human - transport infrastructure such as roads, railways and airports, buildings and other urban development, and names of places and geographic features.

Measuring distances

LINZ does not hold general information about distances between locations or from the sea, or other measurements of New Zealand's landscape features. You can probably work out some distances by measuring with a ruler on a map of New Zealand (we have some downloadable maps on our website).

From the topographic maps LINZ publishes, you can calculate things like distances and areas only as accurately as the map allows. Our largest-scale maps are 1:50,000. To show as much information as possible, maps at this scale are "generalised" (meaning that small twists and turns of features like roads and rivers are smoothed out).

The best you can achieve from a map is the ability to calculate the length of the mapped (generalised) river. Different maps are likely to have different degrees of generalisation, so you may get different results for the same feature.

If you need information that's more accurate, try contacting Statistics New Zealand. Alternatively, a topographic data distributor may be able to calculate it for you.

Identifying heights

If you want to know heights to the nearest 20 metres or so, you can find this out by looking at the contours on the 1:50,000 topographic map (these are described in the legend at the top right of the map under "Relief Features").

The index contours (the bolder ones) are drawn every 100 metres and labelled with their height above sea level. The intermediate contours are spaced every 20 metres, so there are four of these between each 100 metre index contour.

The map will also show elevations at high or low points, which help you to determine the height above sea level for that particular area of the map.

Determining boundaries

For the boundaries of a region, district or city, go to Statistics New Zealand's website to download digital boundaries data.

Finding data for specific land types

The only digital map data made available by LINZ is a complete topographic dataset covering the entire country. For customised information - such as the position of all farms - contact a specialist GIS company. These data distributors can provide complete topographic datasets or independent layers in various formats and in a variety of media. (link to data distributors on LINZ website).

Find out more about LINZ's role in mapping.