The size of an alluvial fan seems to be related to many factors, such as the physiography and geology of the source area and the regional climate. There appears to be no lower limit to the size of fans as the feature may appear on a microscale in almost any environment. It is known from studies in various parts of the world that a large number of modern-day fans have a radius from 1.5 to 10 kilometres. Some fans have a radius as large as 20 kilometres, but these are rare because fans of that size tend to merge with their neighbours, and limited space in depositional basins often prevents free expansion. It is now firmly established that the area of a dry fan seems to be closely related to the area of the basin supplying the fan sediment. For example, in the western part of the United States, area of the fan and source basin area are related by a simple power function A_f = cA_dⁿ, where A_f is the area of the fan and A_d is the area of the drainage basin. The value of the exponent n is reasonably constant for fans in California and Nevada, with a value of approximately 0.9 when the measurements are made in square miles. The coefficient c in the equation, however, varies widely and reflects the effect of other geomorphic factors on fan size. The most important of these factors are climate, lithology of source rock, tectonics, and the space available for fan growth. Fans studied in Fresno county, California, for example, showed that for a given drainage basin area fans derived from basins underlain by mudstones and shale are almost twice as large as those that receive sediment from basins underlain by sandstone. In basins underlain by different rocks, the value of n was approximately the same, but the effect of particle size was seen clearly in the value of the coefficient c, which varied from 0.96 for sandstone basins to 2.1 in mudstone drainage basins. Presumably basins underlain by fine-grained sediments are much more erodible and produce a much greater sediment load.

Fans are, by the very nature of their semi-conical shape, convex upward across the fan surface. The longitudinal slope of a fan usually decreases from the apex to the toe even though its value at any particular location depends on the load-discharge characteristics of the fluvial system. Near the mountain front in the apical area, slopes on fans are commonly very steep, though they probably never exceed 10°. In their distal margins near the toe, gradients may be as low as two metres per kilometre (<1°). The steepest gradients are often associated with coarse-grained loads, high sediment production, and transport processes other than normal streamflow. These same factors may often counteract one another within any given region. The afore-mentioned fans derived from basins underlain by the mudstones are much steeper than fans of the same size related to sandstone basins. The small particle size would presumably create a more gentle slope, but this expectation is offset by the high rate of sediment production in the mudstone basins which produces a much greater total load.

Fan gradients are often known to have special characteristics. First, the gradient of most fans at the apex is approximately the same as that of the trunk river where it moves from the mountain area onto the fan itself. This indicates that deposition on the fan is not caused by a dramatic decrease in gradient as the trunk river passes from the source area to the fan apex. The decrease in velocity required for deposition to occur is caused by some change in hydraulic geometry or because total river discharge decreases as water infiltrates from the channel bottom into the fan material itself. Second, the normal concave-up longitudinal profile that exists on most fans between the apex and the toe is not a smooth exponential curve. Instead, on many fans such as some found in Canada, New Zealand, and the western United States, concavity is produced by the junction of several relatively straight segments, each successive down-fan segment having a lower gradient. Each of the individual segments is probably related to changes imposed on the channel of the trunk river upstream from the fan apex. On some fans, intermittent uplifts of the source area have increased stream gradients, and, in response to these spasmodic tectonic events, there formed a new fan segment that gradually adjusted its slope until it was essentially the same as the newly developed steeper slope of the trunk river. Segmentation, however, may also result from other factors, such as a climatic change that produces a different load/discharge balance. The overall longitudinal profile may be a sensitive indicator of changes that have occurred in the balance between erosional and depositional parts of the fluvial system.

Although fan size and gradients appear to be related to the characteristics of the drainage basin, considerable variation exists on the surface of fans that have been developed under the same physiographic, geologic, and climatic controls. Surface characteristics of dry fans can often be subdivided into major zones called modern washes, abandoned washes, and desert pavements. These different zones seem to reflect areas that are involved to a greater or lesser degree in modern fan processes. For example, on the Shadow Mountain fan in Death Valley, California, washes of various types make up almost 70 percent of the surface area, but only a few of them are occupied by present-day streamflow. These are modern washes and represent the primary areas of deposition on the fan surface under the present discharge regime. They normally contain unweathered sediment particles and have virtually no vegetation.

The large majority of washes are now abandoned, meaning that they are no longer occupied by flow coming from the mountain basins. Abandoned washes have a scrub vegetation, and the gravel in the channels tends to be coated with a dark surface veneer known as desert varnish. Most authorities believe that desert varnish, a brownish-black veneer of iron and manganese oxides, requires several thousand years to develop. This indicates that washes recognized as abandoned have not been occupied by water for millennia.

Desert pavements are surfaces composed of tightly packed gravel, the particles of which are covered by a thick varnish coating. The gravel usually exists as a thin surface cover or armour, which protects an underlying layer of silt that formed under long weathering of the original deposits. Silt that was originally in the spaces between the gravel at the surface has been blown away by wind action, leaving behind a lag deposit composed entirely of gravel. Areas of desert pavement are commonly cut by gullies that head within the pavement area itself. The gullies carry a fine-grained load, which is locally derived from the silt layer beneath the surface gravel cap. Because of this, they often meander and may stand at lower elevations than adjacent modern washes that originate in the mountains. This topographic relationship sets up a geomorphic situation that allows water flowing down modern washes to be diverted periodically into the gullies. With time, part of the desert pavement area may revert back into an active wash by shifting the entire position of the river draining from the mountain. When this occurs, the segment of the wash downstream from where it is diverted gradually turns back into an area of an abandoned wash. What results from these activities is the possibility that processes functioning on dry fans are continuously creating and destroying the various surface areas mentioned above. This means that modern washes will eventually become abandoned washes, and, with time, such abandoned washes will gradually turn into the smooth, heavily varnished surface of a desert pavement. At other places on the same fan, desert pavement areas are being converted back into modern washes, so that the history of the fan becomes a complex continuum of change referred to as dynamic equilibrium.

The dynamic equilibrium model is not accepted by all fan experts. Some believe fans are formed and destroyed (i.e., deposited and eroded) in response to climatic changes that produce different load/discharge relationships. Others hold that some fans have been building continuously for a long time and are approaching some type of equilibrium condition but as yet have not attained that condition. It should be noted that these diverse opinions have been produced by examination of the same fans. Thus, the significance of features and materials found on a fan surface is not so readily discernible that everyone will arrive at the same conclusion as to how they formed.