Giggity giggity!

I think your analytical mind got "typographic" and "topographic" mixed up...

In the Land Nav portion of PLDC (US Army training for becoming a Sergeant - is called something else now) there were soooooo many people that failed out/had to do it over again, that I was super worried when I did it. Seemed pretty damn easy to me. 🤷

If it were a local depression instead of a hill, the lines would be hatch-marked on the side pointing into to depression.

Imagine being down bad enough to get off on a topological map ...

Yeah, very confusing to see an image like this that isn't a smart-ass meme.

Nature's boobs

The rare overhang distinct enough to be captured in topography is i dicated by a brown dotted line in usgs maps

My brother in Rorschach, you are not alone.

Depends on the rest of the map. These are usually set up so the rings mean a certain consistent difference in elevation, say 1ft of 10ft. You don't normally change the spacing partway through the map. If the intervals were 10ft and this was a 20ft peak then you'd obviously have fewer rings than if the intervals were 1ft.

The rings are elevation placements. Less would be "correct in that they'd still signify elevations, it's just less detailed.

For example, the widest ring might be an elevation of 2470ft while the smallest ring might be 2570ft. If there are no rings in between, it's still correct, you're just not getting very detailed. You could easily be looking at a perfect sloap on all sides, like a smooth cone. But place 9 rings in between at 10ft more of elevation each, you've got a much more detailed idea of how a mountain or hill is shaped.

So, correct, but not very useful.