TOPOGRAPHIC MAP EXERCISES - Fairfax Quadrangle

Quadrangle Name: FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
Physiographic Region: PIEDMONT

This map shows an urbanized area on the Piedmont.

1. Find Route 66 across the northern portion of the map. How long (approximately) is the length of the road shown on the map? (Note: the scale of miles is at the bottom of the map. One mile is measured from 0 at the middle to the right or left - the whole bar is two miles long.)
2. On topographic maps:
   • green represents forest, brush, and uncleared areas
   • white represents cleared land, pasture and cropland
   • pink represents urban or suburban built-up areas
   • purple represents features added to the base map when it was photorevised; the largest purple areas are often newly urbanized or suburbanized, that is, like the pink category.

   Roughly, what proportion would you estimate each land use category represents (in percent) of the total areas shown on the map?
   ............Forest?............Cleared land?............Urban/Suburban?

3. Pink areas were urbanized or suburbanized or (densely built-up) by 1966. Purple areas were developed between 1966 and 1984. (See explanation of these dates in bottom right margin of the map.) By what proportion would you estimate that urban areas have grown since 1966?
4. Notice that not all houses and buildings are included in the pink and purple areas. Find Fairfax Forest in the northeast corner of the map just south of Route 50. How many houses are in this development? Of these, how many were built before 1966? How many were built between 1966 and 1984?
5. On the map you will see symbols like this: BM 351. This means that if you actually went to that site you would find a metal plaque in the ground stating that the elevation of that point is 351 feet above sea level. These plaques are called benchmarks. Find Burke Lake Road at the intersection of Braddock Road near the center of the eastern edge of the map. Follow Burke Lake Road southwestward and record your elevation at these benchmarks:

   1. where you cross the railroad tracks.

   2. near Burke school.

   3. at the junction with Pohick Road.

   4. at Donovan's corner (here Burke Road turns into Clifton Road; continue southwest).

   5. near Makleys Corner.

   6. at the junction with Maple Branch Road.

   Calculate the difference in elevation between every set of two points as you traveled this route and figure out if you were going uphill or downhill.

6. Find Burke Lake Park. Name three activities you could do in or near the park.
7. What railroad runs east-west across the map?
8. What straight-line man-made feature symbolized by dots and dashes runs northeast-southwest in the southeastern corner of the map?
9. In the middle of the top and left margins of each topographic map are the names of adjoining maps in parentheses. In the corners are the names of four maps that would show area to the northeast, southwest, etc. Fill in the grid below to show Fairfax and its eight adjoining maps:
   

   	Fairfax

10. What is the name of the shopping center in the northwest corner of the map?

Virginia Topographic Map Exercises Index
Answers

Go to Geography at OUZ