In geographic studies, one of the main concerns of geomorphologists is the achievement of analyses that can be explained within the framework of landform and geomorphic processes. This issue is not possible without field surveys and direct observations, especially for small-scale phenomena, and although visual remote sensing is able to help solve the problem to a degree, availability of images and their utilization are not as easy as access to 1: 50000 topographic maps.
This paper, which is the result of a research project at the Islamic Azad University, describes a method that studies and analyzes the form of contour lines in topographic maps in order to explain the geomorphic forms and processes that create them, and to determine the principles and basics that are based on formic assessment of contour lines in topographic maps.
To achieve such principles, the assessment of thirty regions in terms of field surveys, analysis, recognition and classification of landforms and contour lines and the relationship between landform and the type of contour lines have been carried out in the framework of an experimental comparative method.
The most important result obtained in these studies is that the form of contour lines in topographic maps indicates the spatial content, which means that it is possible to recognize the form and process as well as the forming material of sediments of a region without possession of geological information by relying on certain theorems and analyzing the morphology of contour lines in topographic maps.