Contours

Contour lines connect points of equal elevation relative to mean sea level and play a crucial role in understanding and interacting with the Earth's surface in a wide range of applications. For example, contour lines enable visualizing the shape and steepness of the terrain. By examining the spacing and set up of contour lines, you can identify valleys, ridges, slopes, and other landforms.

You can request the contour layer by adding the following parameter to your query: content=default,contours. For more information, see Optional content.

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Note

The order of attributes in the content parameter is important. Specifically, ensure that you position the default attribute as the first one.

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Hint

Contours are often used in conjunction with hillshade to provide a comprehensive depiction of terrain, combining elevation data with realistic shading to create informative and appealing representations of the landscape.

To display both layers in your map, include hillshade as an additional value of the content parameter, as shown in the following example:

content=default,contours,hillshade

The following figure shows a comparison of hillshaded vector maps without and with the contour layer:

The layer content has the following definition:

• Layer name: contours
• Geometry types: line

Contour properties

The following properties are used to define the contour features.

• kind - Currently, contour is the only available value.
• height - The elevation, measured in meters, indicates the height relative to the mean sea level. Elevations below sea level are denoted by negative values.
• index - The unit digit of the contour's sequential number, which ranges from 0 to 9. For example, the initial contour at a height of 0 corresponds to an index of 0, while the subsequent contour at a height of 10 corresponds to an index of 1. This sequential pattern continues until a height of 90 is reached, with an index of 9. Subsequently, at a height of 100, the index resets to 0. The distance between each contour line, known as the step size, depends on the storage level. If the storage level is 14 or higher, the step size is 10 meters.

The contours are stored on levels from 9 to 14. The storage levels 15 and higher return subset of contours from level 14.

The height difference between the two neighboring contours or step depends on the storage level, as demonstrated in the following table:

Next steps

• For more information about other layer feature types available in the HERE Vector Tile API, see Tile Layers.