What is Topography?

Topography comes from the Greek topos, place and graphos, to describe.
The topography It is the science in charge of physically describing the surface of the earth, describing its accidents and characteristics. It also establishes the methods and procedures to carry out these descriptions.
It is generally called Topography when describing a generally small area, say even a city or a country; when it describes larger areas, such as a continent or the whole world, it is called Geodesy.
The topographic description uses a representation with three axes: the planimetry axes (X and Y) with which it describes a length and width, and an axis of altimetry (Z) with which it describes the heights and depressions. With this
Qualities that a land has and that serve for its description. Topography It means describing in detail a very large terrain on a paper scale, and it is called a “topographic plan”. It is used to describe the different types of places that make up a territory, (such as tundras, cloud forests, coniferous forests, humid forest, dry forest, deserts and thickets). All the measurements and the work that are done to make the plan is called "plan survey." To a greater extent they are called maps and use is made of "cartography". Which is done with the same methods as the

Topography (from topos, "place", and graphs, "description") is the science that studies the set of principles and procedures that are intended to graphic representation of the Earth's surface, with its shapes and details, both natural and artificial (see planimetry and altimetry). This representation takes place on flat surfaces, limiting itself to small extensions of land, using the denomination of geodesy for larger areas. In a very simple way, it can be said that for a surveyor the Earth is flat, whereas for a geodest it is not.
For this, a three-dimensional coordinate system is used, with X and Y being the competence of planimetry, and Z of altimetry.
The topographic maps use the system of representation of dimensioned planes, showing the elevation of the terrain using lines that connect the points with the same elevation with respect to a reference plane, called contour lines, in which case the map is said to be hypsographic. This reference plane may or may not be sea level, but if it is, it will speak of altitudes instead of heights.