Topographic map

Performed at large scales, these surveys are called topographical in the old sense of topography, showing a variety of elevations and landforms.

The first multi-sheet topographic map series of an entire country, the Carte géométrique de la France, was completed in 1789.

[9] The Great Trigonometric Survey of India, started by the East India Company in 1802, then taken over by the British Raj after 1857 was notable as a successful effort on a larger scale and for accurately determining heights of Himalayan peaks from viewpoints over one hundred miles distant.

For example, the federal government of the United States' TIGER initiative compiled interlinked databases of federal, state and local political borders and census enumeration areas, and of roadways, railroads, and water features with support for locating street addresses within street segments.

Digital elevation models (DEM) were also compiled, initially from topographic maps and stereographic interpretation of aerial photographs and then from satellite photography and radar data.

Since all these were government projects funded with taxes and not classified for national security reasons, the datasets were in the public domain and freely usable without fees or licensing.

Initial applications were mostly professionalized forms such as innovative surveying instruments and agency-level GIS systems tended by experts.

By the mid-1990s, increasingly user-friendly resources such as online mapping in two and three dimensions, integration of GPS with mobile phones and automotive navigation systems appeared.

This includes not only how to identify map features, but also how to interpret contour lines to infer landforms like cliffs, ridges, draws, etc.

In the United States, where the primary national series is organized by a strict 7.5-minute grid, they are often called or quads or quadrangles.