relief

The relief of mountains affects climate because they stand in the path of wind systems and force air to rise over them. As the air rises it cools, leading to higher precipitation on windward mountain slopes (orographic precipitation); as it descends leeward slopes it becomes warmer…

Natural features include relief, which is sometimes mistakenly understood to be the sole feature characterizing a topographic map, and hydrographic features, such as lakes and rivers; man-made features include other characteristics of the subject area, such as cities, towns, and villages, and roads, railroads, canals, dams, bridges, tunnels,…

…features, or hydrography; brown for relief, or hypsography; green for vegetation classifications; and red for road classes and special information. There are variations, however, particularly in special-purpose series, such as soil and geologic maps. Symbols will also vary, perforce, because of limitations of space in the smaller scales and the…