The diurnal, seasonal, and solar activity variations of the ionogram derived scale height around the ionospheric F-layer peak (<i>Hm</i>) are statistically analyzed at Wuhan (114.4&deg; E, 30.6&deg; N) and the yearly variations of <i>Hm</i> are also investigated for Wuhan and 12&nbsp;other stations where <i>Hm</i> data are available. <i>Hm</i>, as a measure of the slope of the topside electron number density profiles, is calculated from the bottomside electron density profiles derived from vertical sounding ionograms using the UMLCAR SAO-Explorer. Results indicate that the value of median <i>Hm</i> increases with increasing solar flux. <i>Hm</i> is highest in summer and lowest in winter during the daytime, while it exhibits a much smaller seasonal variation at night. A common feature presented at these 13&nbsp;stations is that <i>Hm</i> undergoes a yearly annual variation with a maximum in summer during the daytime. The annual variation becomes much weaker or disappears from late night to pre-sunrise. In addition, a moderate positive correlation is found between <i>Hm</i> with <I>hm</I>F2 and a strong correlation between the bottomside thickness parameter B0 and <i>Hm</i>. The latter provides a new and convenient way for empirical modeling the topside ionospheric shape only from the established B0 parameter set.