(i.e. next to), the term chorography, which is the description of regions, and next to
geography, the description of vast areas and of the entire earth.
In our time the term topography has a more diverse meaning. One understands it to
be:
1. Topography in the sense of the literary description of the land, i.e. the inventorisa-
tion of terrain objects and terrain characteristics in written form without directing
attention to the coherence between them.
2. Topography as a number of processes containing the survey and the compilation of
topographic maps.
3. Topography as the collection of natural and artificial elements and characteristics
of the terrain. The collection contains:
a. elevation, relief, stagnant and flowing surface water, natural Vegetation;
b. artefacts for the regional Organization of an area, such as land divisions
in various forms (i.e. plot and lot divisions), regional landscaping (i.e. planting
and drainage ditches);
c. artefacts for cultural technical land development, such as Clearings
and polders;
d. artefacts for the economic-geological exploitation such as querries and clay
pits:
e. artefacts for aspects of opening-up an area, such as roads, harbours, airports and
airstrips;
f. artefacts for the aspects of the shape of built-up areas, such as houses, factories,
villages and cities.
4. In a more narrow sense topography is interpreted as relief. The meteorologist talks
about, for instance, "the topography of the 500 mb surface" and the oceano-
grapher about "the topography of the ocean floor".
As there is no unanimity about the term 'topography', there also does not seem to
be any agreement about what the contents of topographic maps ought to be. From a
comparison of such maps, taking also those from various other countries, it appears
that dissimilar criteria have been used for the compilation of the contents of such
maps. On the one hand one finds that the entire ränge of topographic phenomena (i.e.
the terrain elements and characteristics) have been taken by some countries as
elements to be included on the map, while other countries only have taken a small part
of such phenomena as elements to be included on their maps. In addition, one finds
that the selection of topographic phenomena to be included, usually follows a national
norm, rather than a norm which reflects the type of landscape to be mapped. The
legends, which in effect represent the collection of terrain elements to be mapped, are
generally inadequate in relation to the diversity of landscape types.
In Switzerland and in the Netherlands, each with a large variety of landscape types,
one finds as only variable within the legend and the application thereof on the map the
difference in value of the contour interval. This varies with the relief energy. On the
legend of the Dutch topographic map, which came mainly into existence prior to the
strong urbanization trend, it appears that the countryside (i.e. the non-urbanized
areas) are represented in more detail than the built-up areas. One can feel this as a
deficiency, because the urban areas are growing entities, not only in population and
270 K.N.A.G. Geograßsch Tijdschrift VI (1972) Nr. 3
THE CONTENT VARIATION OF TOPOGRAPHIC MAPS
