NATURAL COLORS

The use of natural colors according to land use or climate may give the map-reader a realistic feeling of the area.

The following example is from the Tibesti Mountains (Chad, Africa) in the Sahara desert. The reddish yellow colors reinforce the impression of an arid landscape. The choice of different light directions in the map (northwest to northeast) was probably deliberate in order to emphasize certain forms.

"Bardai" (section) 1967. © National Academy for Civil Engineering, Berlin, 1:25,000.

Aerial photography of Bardai.

The map "Die Welt ist bunt" (The World is Colorful) divides the earth's surface into 10 climate categories. The reddish orange describes the hot, burned soil of the desert. Yellowish orange depicts semi-desert and desert steppe. Green tones, varying between a green-brown (coniferous woodland), green-yellow (agricultural land) to a green-blue (rainforest), stand for humid areas.

"Die Welt ist bunt" (section), 1963 © Falk Verlag. 1:40 mio (original size 48 x 138 cm). Relief shading by F. Hölzel, colors by W. Dylewski.

The following map uses the same shaded relief as the example illustrating hypsometric colors. Here, the brown color represents the arid desert better.

"Nildelta, Suezkanal, Jordangraben" (section). © Schweizer Weltatlas, 1997, 1:2,000,000.

Further remarkable examples of naturally colored reliefs:
"Relief de la Suisse" by Eduard Imhof
"Walensee" by Eduard Imhof
"Europa map" by Hal Shelton
"Natural Earth II" by Tom Patterson
"Natural Earth Globe" animation by Adrian Weber
"Grand Teton" and "Kenai Fjords National Park" by
Tom Patterson, who combines relief shadings and aerial photographs. For more details, see Patterson's paper "Getting Real: Reflecting on the New Look of National Park Service Maps"