Orienteering Hieroglyphics - What do those symbols mean?

For most beginners, one of the more baffling aspects of orienteering is deciphering the squiggles and symbols of the orienteering control description sheet.

In case you're wondering, the reason why these symbols are used rather than a plain text description is that orienteering is a true international sport. At major orienteering events, competitors from many different countries speaking many different languages will attend.  Using a universally accepted set of symbols allows everyone to compete equally.

The good news is, for most of the more modest meets that CROC puts on, you only need to learn a handful of the symbols to quickly determine what you're looking for. In the Northwest, you're far more likely to see a knoll, spur, reentrant, or vegetation boundary then you are such unusual symbols as a fodder rack, charcoal burning ground, shooting platform, or tower.

In addition, at most CROC meets, we print both the symbol AND written text on the control description sheet.  This allows those newer to the sport to see the symbol and actual text next to one another, hopefully enabling new folks to learn the symbols more quickly.

For example, a standard control description sheet would have only symbols, like this:

But at most CROC meets, control description sheets would have symbols AND text, like this:

However, to really learn the symbols well you need to do some studying. Here are some sites do you started.

1. Short summary of control symbols
2. Longer summary of control symbols
3. Online quiz of control symbols (pretty challenging!)
4. Online quiz for map reading (pretty challenging!)