Among soil analyses at the landscape scale, the "structural analysis technique" defined by Boulet and al. (1982, a, b, c) is actually widely used. Its principle is to examine, in detail, the soil mantle of entire slopes using punctual observations (auger hole and/or soil profile) for the identification of pedological systems. The profile observations are performed along a transect in regular intervals followed by additional observations due to the soil variations. To map the whole research area, the different soil layers (Soil Science horizons) are identified through the soil scientist using an expert interpolation between different transects. For the investigation of larger areas (several hundreds of thousand hectares), this technique encounters methodological and economic difficulties: first, only punctual observations are empirical available, and second, the process turns out be very costly due to the large number of data required. Additional techniques of the field of soil cartography are necessary. Among these, soil predicting models using terrain attributes derived from digital elevation models (DEM) can be used. Two examples (one in tropical climate, located on sandstone's of Bauru in Southern Brasil, the other in an oceanic climate, located in an acid rock area with loamy soil in the Armorican massif in Western France) demonstrate how the "structural analysis techniques" completed with models, relating the soil organization to the variation of terrain attributes highly improved soil cartography on large areas.

Words keys: soil cartography, structural analysis, soil landscape models, tropical end oceanic climate.