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

A fitness landscape is like a topographic map that visualizes the evolution of an organism: every species wanders through its fitness landscape by testing whether or not random mutations in its genes increase its growth rate, or fitness.

From Science Daily

You can clearly see these on a topographic map as circles or ovals that have small lines pointing to the center of the circle or oval.

From Seattle Times

Had they studied a topographic map before buying this home, they could have seen from the contour lines how much land above them collected water, then funneled it to their lot.

From Seattle Times

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

Mount St. Helens Topo Cup An eco-friendly collaboration between PNW staple Miir and Portland company Rustek, this camp cup has a wrap of real wood engraved with a topographic map of Mount St. Helens.

From Seattle Times