topographic map

American  

noun

1. a map showing topographic features, usually by means of contour lines.

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Usage

What is a topographic map? A topographic map is a map that indicates the features of the land’s surface, such as mountains, hills, and valleys. This is typically done with wavy lines that represent the curves and elevation of the land. Topographic is the adjective form of the noun topography, which refers to the surface features of land. Topographic maps are sometimes called topo maps for short. Topographic maps are frequently used by hikers to navigate and plan their routes, but they’re for more than just recreation. Architects, biologists, and many other professionals rely on them for important information about a particular landscape.

Example Sentences

In short, the traits of each species correspond to fitness peaks that can be likened to mountains on a topographic map separated from other mountains by valleys of lower fitness.

From Science Daily • Jan. 18, 2024

To reconstruct those early travelers’ potential paths, researchers assembled the first detailed topographic map of Sahul—including past coastal lands now underwater—from satellite, aerial, and undersea mapping data.

From Science Magazine • May 4, 2021

A topographic map of the canyon was the single biggest piece of art.

From Washington Post • Jan. 5, 2017

Stitched together, the images provide a topographic map of the cylinder’s surface, charting changes in depth as small as one five-hundredth the thickness of a human hair.

From New York Times • May 4, 2015

Because he had no topographic map, however, he had no way of conceiving that salvation was so close at hand.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer