Safety Considerations
All participants should:

Map Handling Techniques

Making Route Choices
Factors to keep in mind when making route choices:

Control Placement
Control sites must be precise locations that are found on the ground and clearly indicated on the map. Generally, if controls are within 50 meters of each other, they must be on different types of features to avoid confusion of the participants. Starts points must be at precise locations just like controls. It is common to use streamers to guide participants from the last control to the actual finish line.

Places where control sites are commonly located:

Course Printing
When hand-drawn, control points and start and finish locations are best drawn with a fine-point red or purple pen. Staedtler Lumocolor (permanent type) pens are great since you can see the map features though the ink. For higher-level competitions, courses are pre-printed using a special device, or placed on the map during the original printing.

Start location: A triangle with 6mm legs is used to indicate the start point. The start point should be in the exact center of the triangle. One of the points of the triangle must point toward the first control.

Control locations: Red or purple 6 mm diameter circles are drawn around each control feature/site. The location of the control feature should be in the exact center of the circle. For example, if the control site is a building, the center of the circle should be at the corner of the building where the control flag is located. Circles should be broken if they will cover up a feature. The control number is written on the map just outside the control circle. The top of the number should point to north on the map. This allows the competitor to know which way is north on the map without unfolding the map.

Finish location: The finish location is drawn on the map in one of two ways:

Connecting lines: Lines are used to connect control points if a participant is to take the controls in numerical sequence (typical). For example, cross country and motala courses are designed so participants must take controls in a specified order. Score orienteering permits the participant to go to controls in any sequence. Therefore, Score "O" controls do not have lines connecting the control points. This line does not necessarily indicate the fastest route to the control site. Lines are drawn on the map from the start triangle to the first control, then from control to control. A line also connects the last control to the finish location. Break the line if it covers up important navigational features.

Control Description Cards
Control description cards provide information about the control site and control marker (flag). For beginners, this is done in plain English (or whatever prevailing language). For more experienced orienteers, a set of internationally-recognized symbols are used so that a common language is not required in order to compete fairly against each other (see international symbols on Heather Williams' site).

A beginner's control description card will have three columns. Column 1 contains the Control Number, column 2 the Control Code, and column 3 the description of the associated control feature (and details about the placement of the control flag in relationship to the feature if required).
* M = meter. The standard in Orienteering is to use metric units.

Sample control descriptions:

Orienteering Course Levels (US system)
White (Beginner or map hiker):
- Average length of course: up to 3 km
- Average number of controls: up to 8
- Difficulty of control placement: easy, obvious locations along roads, paths and other major linear features
- Orienteering skills necessary to complete course: basic map reading, ability to take a safety bearing with a compass
- Approximate winning time: 30 minutes

Yellow (Advanced Beginner):
- Average length of course: 2.5 to 3.5 km
- Average number of controls: up to 10
- Difficulty of control placement: near large map features, less obvious than white course features
- Orienteering skills necessary to complete course: more precise map reading and simple compass use
-Approximate winning time: 40 minutes

Orange (Intermediate level):
- Average length of course: 4 to 5 km
- Average number of controls: up to 10
- Difficulty of control placement: varied difficulty, difficult controls are introduced with large collecting features
- Orienteering skills necessary to complete course: good map reading, basic pace counting, beginning rough and precision compass skills
- Approximate winning time: 50 minutes

Advanced level courses (Brown, Green, Red and Blue) These are all elite- or expert-level courses . Controls are placed in difficult locations on small features. There are often several route choices to a control. Courses combine all orienteering skills.

Brown: 3.5 to 4.5 km; up to 10 controls; winning time 50 minutes

Green: 4 to 5 km; up to 12 controls; winning time 50 minutes

Red: 5 to 7 km; up to 15 controls; winning time 60 minutes

Blue: 3.5 to 4.5 km; up to 20 controls; winning time 60 to 80 minutes