This website, "Reading Topographic Maps", is committed to maintaining a clear privacy policy. The following discloses our practices for collecting and disseminating information about visitors to this website:

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From time to time, we may ask visitors to complete a questionnaire including such information as their zip code, age, income level or similar information in order to collect broad demographic data about who visits our site and who finds it to be useful. This information will help us to provide a better web-viewing experience for visitors to this site.

We will use third party advertisers on our website, and we will share data we collect with them. We, or those advertisers, or both may provide a unique number to your browser, called a "cookie". These are used to measure and improve the effectiveness of the advertisements that are used. If a third party advertising company gives a "cookie" to your browser, we will not be able to access it. Only the company who gave your browser the "cookie" will be able to use it.

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Books

This website is based on the US Army Field Manual: "Map Reading and Land Navigation" Buy a copy from Amazon.com to take with you out in the field.

Book Review - Be Expert with Map and Compass

One of the best ways to learn and become proficient in any subject is to find a way to make a game or sport of it. That's exactly what orienteering does! Orienteering began to develop almost 100 years ago in the Scandinavian countries as a fun and effective method for military training in land navigation. Bjorn Kjellstrom was closely involved with the early development of orienteering, and he is the person who introduced the sport to North America. He, along with his brother Alvar, and a friend named Gunnar Tillander, invented the modern orienteering compass. They manufactured and marketed it as the Silva Protractor compass. This compass, along with Bjorn's book Be Expert with Map and Compass, made it much easier for anyone to learn how to use a map and compass.

This book has become the most widely read classic on the subject of map reading, compass use, and orienteering. Over 500,000 copies have been sold in the english language editions alone. There have been very successful editions published in French, Italian, and other languages as well. It is a short (just over 200 pages), easy to read, enjoyable book that can help you to have fun while you learn the subject quickly and effectively.

The book is organized into four main parts, plus a short, useful introduction. Part 1 covers having fun with maps alone. Then, Part 2 covers having fun with a compass alone. Part 3 puts it together and shows you how to have fun with a map and compass together. This section also introduces the game or sport of orienteering. Part 4 covers competitive orienteering for those who would like to compete with others in the sport.

A reproduction of a segment of an actual topographic map is included as a fold-out in the back of the book. It is used together with the "how-to" instructions the book provides. For example, one of the exercises in Part 3 is an imaginary orienteering "hike" that uses the sample map.