I have contour lines with height values from 0 to 1030 (sorted by height 110, 115, 120, 125). Values with in-between number (like 5, 15, 115, 135...) should be grouped and colored with same color, and other values should be grouped this way 10, 60, 110, 160, 210, 260… (yellow), 20, 70, 120, 170, 220… (red), 30, 80, 130, 180, 230… (cyan) etc. I hope you get it despite my bad English 🙂 So, I don't know how to change symbology in ArcMap to color them that way. Can somebody help me?
ArcMap Symbology – Understanding Symbology of Contour Lines
arcmapcontoursymbology
Related Solutions
This ESRI blog post describes a method for finding depressions using contours. On a topo map depressions look like this:
Note that the above approach is not desgined to be programmatic, but simply relies on symbolizing the contour lines using different colors so that you can visually find lines which do not fit the pattern of stepwise increases.
Labeling using the Contour Placement style
Required: ArcMap
Clean (good) Data
Maplex Labeling Enabled. (see http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#/A_quick_tour_of_the_Labeling_toolbar/00s800000014000000/)
The Maplex Label Engine groups the segments of contour features, if the symbology and label match and the features are connected, and treats them as single, long features
Official Documentation on Contour Label Placement
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//00s800000064000000
Best Answer
In the Symbology tab you can classify your own values and apply to the contours
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?tocVisable=0&ID=-1&TopicName=contours&pid=1