/ Describing patterns in the landscape and interpreting the effects of these patterns on flora, fauna, and other factors has been of long-standing interest. Many descriptors have been developed, and these aggregate factors into a single index. The identical numerical result for a multifactor index can be attained by using an array of very different values. We list six important factors for describing a mapped area: the area, the classes, proportion of dominant class, number of polygons, polygon size variance, and elevation range and suggest that these and their map statistics will encompass most of the observed phenomena associated with things perceived as land pattern. KEY WORDS: Landscape ecology; Diversity; Spatial analyses; Forest; Indices