Introduction

A landform is a discrete morphological feature of the solid surface of a planetary body—on Earth or elsewhere—formed or modified by natural processes and, in some cases, by human activity. Together, landforms make up the physical fabric of a terrain, whose pattern of elevation, slope and relief is captured by the concept of topography. Terrestrial examples such as hills, mountains, canyons and valleys exemplify characteristic variations in height, gradient and relief within landscapes. Shoreline and coastal landforms—bays, peninsulas and seas—record the dynamic interface between land and standing or moving water, while submerged and oceanic features like mid‑ocean ridges, submarine volcanoes and ocean basins constitute the principal bathymetric structures of the seafloor. Named assemblages, for example the Chocolate Hills, illustrate how the landform concept applies to regionally distinctive, recognisable geomorphological units.

Physical characteristics

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Landforms are defined and classified by observable, measurable physical attributes—notably elevation, slope gradient, aspect, stratification of bedrock, degree of rock exposure and soil properties. These variables jointly shape a landform’s morphology, stability, susceptibility to erosion and its ecological character, because they determine how surface processes act and how vegetation and soils develop.

At the continental scale four persistent surface categories—hills, mountains, plains and plateaus—serve as primary units for geomorphological mapping. These major classes differ principally in elevation range, local relief, slope steepness and spatial extent. Embedded within and between these broad categories are a range of conspicuous surface elements (cliffs, ridges, peninsulas, valleys, river channels, volcanoes, berms and mounds) whose form and management depend on scale and on categorical distinctions (e.g., pond versus lake, inland versus marine waterbody; hill versus mountain).

Smaller, localized features—basins, buttes, canyons and incised valleys—typically reflect concentrated erosional or depositional processes and often occur nested within larger landform contexts (a basin within a plateau, a canyon cut into a mountain front). Hydrological and subsurface components are integral to landform systems: flowing and standing water reshape terrain through erosion, transport and deposition, while buried sediments, aquifers and bedrock geometry exert structural control on surface expression through differential weathering and stability contrasts.

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Tectonic activity (uplift, folding, faulting and volcanism) generates and reorganizes relief, resetting long-term landscape trajectories and altering orientation and slope. Superimposed on these drivers, structural factors such as rock type, stratification and fracture patterns interact with soils and surface cover to produce characteristic forms (for example resistant strata forming cliffs or caprocks producing isolated buttes) and to regulate erosion rates, sediment flux and vegetation distribution.

Robust geomorphological description therefore requires explicit attention to scale (local versus regional), quantitative metrics (elevation and slope statistics), process history (tectonic, fluvial, volcanic) and clear categorical distinctions between major and minor landform types. Combining these elements supports consistent mapping, hazard assessment and informed landscape management.

Hierarchy of classes

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Landforms are most usefully conceived as a nested hierarchy in which successive orders capture progressively finer spatial detail. At the highest order are the largest continental and oceanic domains; the next level down comprises broad physiographic provinces such as mountain belts, plateaus, plains and extensive uplands; and meso‑scale, third‑order forms include discrete features like individual peaks, lakes, dunes, valleys and waterfalls. This ordered framework helps situate any particular feature within the broader landscape that shapes and constrains it.

Embedded within higher‑order forms are recognisable morphological elements — crests, shoulders, saddles, foreslopes and backslopes, together with pits, channels, ridges, passes and pools — whose arrangement and relative proportions determine the character of the larger landform. At a chosen mapping scale these elements are aggregated into elementary units (also called facets, segments or relief units): contiguous areas with internally consistent morphometric properties and bounded by lines of abrupt change. These units provide the basic parcels for geomorphic description, classification and comparison.

The vertical aspect of the surface, commonly termed relief or terrain, is the primary object of topographic analysis; when equivalent measurements are taken beneath water, the field is referred to as bathymetry. Relief is represented and analysed using cartographic and computational tools that convert vertical variation into measurable datasets — for example, contour maps and digital surface models such as triangulated irregular networks (TINs) — enabling quantitative interpretation and modelling of landform geometry.

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The recognition and mapping of landforms are inherently scale‑dependent. A feature perceived as a hill, plateau or valley at one spatial resolution may be reinterpreted as a facet of a larger structure at another; the apparent extent and even the identity of many forms therefore change with observation scale, much as other Earth materials (soils, strata) exhibit scale‑sensitive patterns. Correspondingly, landforms arise from an interplay of processes operating across timescales and spatial extents: tectonic uplift, folding and faulting set broad templates, while erosion, transport and deposition by water, wind and ice (and increasingly by human activity) sculpt and redistribute surface material. Biological agents also participate in geomorphic change — vegetation traps and stabilises sediments in dunes and marshes, and sessile organisms such as corals build reef structures that become prominent geomorphic features.

Although many human‑made and ecological surface types interact with geomorphic processes, engineered structures (for example canals and ports) and broad cover classes (deserts, forests, grasslands) are generally not treated as landforms in a strict geomorphic taxonomy. The concepts and vocabulary used to describe terrestrial landforms are nevertheless portable: analogous terms are applied to planetary surfaces beyond Earth, facilitating comparative studies of surface processes. The scientific discipline that addresses the origin, evolution and classification of landforms is geomorphology, while the proper names assigned to discrete landform objects are studied in onomastics under the label oronyms (for example the karst towers of the Lijiang River, Guilin, and the Erg Tiffernine dune field in the Algerian Sahara).

Recent developments in landform analysis center on the widespread use of digital elevation models (DEMs) as the foundational quantitative representation of topography. DEMs, derived from a range of remote sensing platforms—including modern Earth-observing satellites and stereoscopic aerial imagery—provide gridded surfaces from which ridges, valleys, slopes, depressions and other geomorphic elements can be delineated using geomorphometric and pattern-recognition methods. Automated processing chains that compute derivatives such as slope and curvature, perform hydrological routing, and apply feature-classification algorithms have made it possible to identify landform elements systematically and at scale, replacing much of the expert-intensive photogrammetric and field compilation that previously dominated the discipline.