topography

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Detailed, precise description of a place or region.
2. n. Graphic representation of the surface features of a place or region on a map, indicating their relative positions and elevations.
3. n. A description or an analysis of a structured entity, showing the relations among its components: In the topography of the economy, several depressed areas are revealed.
4. n. The surface features of a place or region.
5. n. The surface features of an object: The topography of a crystal.
6. n. The surveying of the features of a place or region.
7. n. The study or description of an anatomical region or part.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The detailed description of a particular locality, as a city, town, estate, parish, or tract of land; the detailed description of any region, including its cities, towns, villages, castles, etc.
2. n. The features of a region or locality collectively: as, the topography of a place.
3. n. In surveying, the delineation of the features, natural and artificial, of a country or a locality.
4. n. In anatomy, regional anatomy; the mapping of the surface of the body with reference to the parts and organs lying beneath such divisions of the surface, or the bounding of any part of the body by anatomical landmarks. The best examples of the former case of topography are the divisions of the abdominal and thoracic surfaces by arbitrary lines (see cuts under abdominal and thoracic); of the latter case, the natural bounds of the axilla, the inguen, the poples, Scarpa's triangle, the several surgical triangles of the neck, etc. See triangle.
5. n. In zoology, the determination of those different parts of the surface of an animal which may be conveniently recognized by name, for the purpose of ordinary description of specimens: as, the topography of a bird, a crab, an insect. Good examples are those figured under birdand Brachyura. Ordinary descriptive zoölogy proceeds very largely upon such topography.

Wiktionary

1. n. a precise description of a place
2. n. a detailed graphic representation of the surface features of a place or object
3. n. the features themselves (the terrain)
4. n. the surveying of the features

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The description of a particular place, town, manor, parish, or tract of land; especially, the exact and scientific delineation and description in minute detail of any place or region.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. precise detailed study of the surface features of a region
2. n. the configuration of a surface and the relations among its man-made and natural features