Article filter
Map Reading Skills – Advanced Guides
This collection of advanced guides will enhance your navigation skills and prepare you for the most extreme of adventures.
What Kind of Compass do I Need
Improve your map reading skills with this beginner’s guide to the compass. We take a look at the different types of compass, such as a baseplate compass, and explain how to orientate a map with one.
Teaching younger children about maps
Teaching children to map read from a young age will help them understand the world around them and set them up for future adventures. We look at how you can introduce younger children to map reading and teach them to create their own simple maps.
Teacher training: how to make map skills fun
Adrian Hall of Active Outdoor Discovery is an Outdoor Activities Instructor, Mountain Leader and Expedition leader – and has spent the last few years inspiring school children to learn all about maps. Here is his advice on how you can make maps fun for kids to support their education and help them learn important life skills.
How to Spot History on a Map – Old OS Map Symbols
Learn what old map symbols mean. British broadcaster and anthropologist, Mary-Ann Ochota reveals some of the most common archaeological clues and historic map symbols.
Danger Areas
If you’ve been using OS Maps’ ‘standard’ mapping recently, you may have noticed we’ve added some places marked as ‘Danger Area’. Find out more about what they are and what you can do on them here.
Ordnance survey advanced map reading quiz
We’ve created a tough map reading quiz to test your skills. See if you can get 100% without looking at a map legend!
Os tricky place names quiz
We’ve created this challenging place names quiz to see how easily you can be tricked with made up places. See if you can get 100%!
Os map puzzles to challenge your skills
Looking for something to challenge yourself? These puzzles, taken from the two OS Puzzle books, will test your map reading skills!