Topography
Sweden's highest mountains: every summit over 2,000 metres
Kebnekaise is the highest, but Sweden has twelve summits over 2,000 metres. Here they all are, with heights, and the three reasons different lists do not agree.
Topography
Contour lines, elevation models and vertical exaggeration - how a landscape is measured and how it becomes something you can touch.
Topography
Relief map, topographic map or 3D wall art? The difference explained
A topographic map shows shape as lines, a relief map shows it in three dimensions, and 3D topographic wall art is a relief made for a wall. On the words, the oldest mountain relief and what really sets them apart.
Topography
The tree line has climbed, but not evenly
On Getryggen near Storulvån the tree line now sits above 1,000 metres, more than 200 metres higher than a century ago. Yet across a five-year window nothing shows at all. On a boundary that is harder to measure than it sounds.
Topography
Why do Swedish mountains look the way they do?
Rounded summits but vertical northern faces. Broad U-shaped valleys but flat high plateaus. The shapes of the Swedish mountains are the result of three separate events, 400 million years apart.
Topography
How to read contour lines on a mountain map
Contour interval, tightly spaced lines and the V shapes that separate a stream valley from a ridge. A short, concrete guide to how contour lines work on Swedish maps.
Topography
What is an elevation model? Laser data, point clouds and grids
An elevation model is not an image, it is a table of heights. The difference between DTM and DSM, how airborne laser scanning works, and what resolution means once terrain becomes physical.
Topography
How a mountain's height is measured, and why the number changes
Sea level is not flat, GPS measures the wrong height, and a summit made of snow shrinks over the summer. How elevation above sea level is actually derived - and why Kebnekaise, Mont Blanc and Etna have all changed number.
