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A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include , , , and , as well as shoreline features such as , , and , including submerged features such as , volcanoes, and the great .
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and exemplify the highest-order landforms. Landform elements are parts of a high-order landforms that can be further identified and systematically given a cohesive definition such as hill-tops, shoulders, saddles, foreslopes and backslopes.
Some generic landform elements including: pits, peaks, channels, ridges, passes, pools and plains.
Terrain (or relief) is the third or vertical dimension of land surface. Topography is the study of terrain, although the word is often used as a synonym for relief itself. When relief is described underwater, the term bathymetry is used. In cartography, many different techniques are used to describe relief, including and triangulated irregular networks.
Elementary landforms (segments, facets, relief units) are the smallest homogeneous divisions of the land surface, at the given scale/resolution. These are areas with relatively homogeneous morphometric properties, bounded by lines of discontinuity. A plateau or a hill can be observed at various scales, ranging from a few hundred meters to hundreds of kilometers. Hence, the spatial distribution of landforms is often scale-dependent, as is the case for soils and geological strata. A number of factors, ranging from plate tectonics to erosion and deposition (also due to human activity), can generate and affect landforms. biology factors can also influence landforms—for example, note the role of vegetation in the development of dune systems and , and the work of and in the formation of reef.
Landforms do not include several man-made features, such as , and many ; and geographic features, such as , , and . Many of the terms are not restricted to refer to features of the planet Earth, and can be used to describe surface features of other planets and similar objects in the Universe. Examples are mountains, hills, polar caps, and valleys, which are found on all of the terrestrial planets.
The scientific study of landforms is known as geomorphology.
In onomastic terminology, toponyms (geographical proper names) of individual landform objects (mountains, hills, valleys, etc.) are called Toponymy.
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