1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Topographic prominence
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It is a measure of the independence of a summit. A peaks key col is a point on this contour line. By convention, the prominence of Mount Everest, the Earths highest mountain, is taken to equal the elevation of its summit above sea level, if the peaks prominence is P metres, to get from the summit to any higher terrain one must descend at least P metres. Together with the convention for Mount Everest, this implies that the prominence of any island or continental highpoint is equal to its elevation above sea level, for every ridge connecting the peak to higher terrain, find the lowest point on the ridge. The key col is defined as the highest of these cols, the prominence is the difference between the elevation of the peak and the elevation of the key col. The following mental exercise may illustrate the meaning of topographic prominence, imagine you are standing at the top of a peak and imagine that an imaginary sea level rises to your feet. Now slowly lower the sea level and an imaginary island appears beneath your feet. Your island will grow and will merge with other islands that emerge, the parent peak may be either close or far from the subject peak. The summit of Mount Everest is the parent peak of Aconcagua at a distance of 17,755 km, the key col may also be close or far from the subject peak. The key col for Aconcagua is the Bering Strait at a distance of 13,655 km, the key col for the South Summit of Mount Everest is about 100 m distant. Prominence is interesting to many mountaineers because it is a measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominences are either subsidiary tops of some higher summit or relatively insignificant independent summits, peaks with high prominences tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. Only summits with a sufficient degree of prominence are regarded as independent mountains, for example, the worlds second-highest mountain is K2. While Mount Everests South Summit is taller than K2, it is not considered an independent mountain because it is a subsummit of the main summit, many lists of mountains take topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion, or cutoff. John and Anne Nuttalls The Mountains of England and Wales uses a cutoff of 15 m, in the contiguous United States, the famous list of fourteeners uses a cutoff of 300 ft /91 m. Also in the U. S.2000 feet of prominence has become a threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. This generates lists of peaks ranked by prominence, which are different from lists ranked by elevation. Such lists tend to emphasize isolated high peaks, such as range or island high points, one advantage of a prominence-ranked list is that it needs no cutoff, since a peak with high prominence is automatically an independent peak
3.
Holy Island, Anglesey
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Holy Island is an island on the western side of the larger Isle of Anglesey, Wales, from which it is separated by a narrow, winding channel. It is called Holy because of the concentration of standing stones, burial chambers. The alternative and historic name of the island is Holyhead Island, according to the 2011 UK Census, the population was 13,659, of which 11,431 lived in the largest town, Holyhead. Irish pirates invaded Anglesey following the end of Roman rule in Britannia, cunedda first began warfare against the Irish but ultimately Cadwallon Lawhir defeated the Irish on Holy Island. There are a variety of habitats on Anglesey including mudflats, dunes, marshes. Practically nothing is left of the oak forest that covered almost all of the island before the arrival of Neolithic farmers. The western side of the island is taken up mainly by Holyhead Mountain, an area of maritime heather moor, the coastal zone between the island and the mainland of Anglesey is a large site of special scientific interest – Beddmanarch–Cymyran. Holy Island is connected to Anglesey by two road links, the first, the Stanley Embankment, is made up of causeways carrying the A5/A55 and the main railway line to Chester and London, and the original bridge of the A5 post road. The second is Four Mile Bridge which carries a B road and is much smaller, the main settlement is the port of Holyhead, from which passenger ferries travel to Dún Laoghaire and Dublin, Ireland, and freight ferries also travel to Dublin. Holyhead railway station is located in the town, other settlements include the villages of Trearddur Bay, Rhoscolyn and Four Mile Bridge. Around 30 miles of the 125-mile Anglesey Coastal Path is on Holy Island, peripheral islands and stacks include North Stack, and South Stack, with its famous lighthouse. Before – and even after – the construction of lighthouses, the cliffs, Holy Island protected site Ysgol Rhoscolyn Primary School
4.
Marilyn (geography)
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A Marilyn is a mountain or hill in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland or Isle of Man with a prominence of at least 150 metres, regardless of absolute height or other merit. The name was coined as a punning contrast to the designation Munro, used of a Scottish mountain with a height of more than 3,000 feet, which is homophonous with Monroe. There are 2,010 Marilyns identified,1,218 in Scotland,454 in Ireland,175 in England,158 in Wales,5 on the Isle of Man. Black Mountain, in the Black Mountains, on the border between England and Wales, was counted in both countries but is now treated as being in Wales only. The list was extended into Ireland by Clem Clements in a booklet, The Hewitts, however, some lower hills such as Seatallan and Watch Hill on the edges of Lakeland and the Long Mynd in Shropshire do qualify because of their isolation from higher hills. At the other extreme are Stac Lee and Stac an Armin, nearly 80% of Marilyns in Great Britain are in Scotland. They logically extend earlier Scottish lists such as the Munros, Corbetts, Grahams, all Corbetts and Grahams,203 of the 282 Munros, and around half of the Donalds are also Marilyns. Some hillwalkers attempt to climb as many Marilyns as possible, some amateur radio operators attempt to operate from the summit of every Marilyn. Eddie Dealtry became the person to achieve Woodalls feat, later on the same day. By 28 September 2016, the Marilyns of Great Britain had been completed by 10 hillwalkers, while 320 had entered the Marilyn Hall of Fame by attaining a count of at least 600
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Anglesey
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Anglesey or Ynys Môn is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. With an area of 276 square miles, Anglesey is by far the largest island of Wales, Anglesey is also the largest island in the Irish Sea by area, and the second most populous island in the Irish Sea. The population at the 2011 census was 69,751, two bridges span the Menai Strait, connecting the island to the mainland, the Menai Suspension Bridge, designed by Thomas Telford in 1826, and the Britannia Bridge. A historic county of Wales and later administrated as part of Gwynedd, Anglesey today makes up the Isle of Anglesey County along with Holy Island and other smaller islands. The majority of Angleseys inhabitants are Welsh speakers and Ynys Môn, Anglesey is derived from Old Norse, originally either Ǫngullsey Hook Island or Ǫnglisey Ǫnglis Island. No record of any such Ǫngli survives, but the name was used by Viking raiders as early as the 10th century and was later adopted by the Normans during their invasions of Gwynedd. All of these derive from the proposed Proto-Indo-European root *ank-. It was also spelled as Anglesea. Ynys Môn, the islands Welsh name, was first recorded as Latin Mona by various Roman sources and it was likewise known to the Saxons as Monez. The Brittonic original was in the past taken to have meant Island of the Cow and this view is linguistically untenable, however, according to modern scientific philology. The etymology thus currently remains a mystery, poetic names for Anglesey include the Old Welsh Ynys Dywyll for its former groves and Ynys y Cedairn for its royal courts, Gerald of Wales Môn Mam Cymru for its productivity, and Y fêl Ynys. Numerous megalithic monuments and menhirs are present on Anglesey, testifying to the presence of humans in prehistory, Plas Newydd is near one of 28 cromlechs that remain on uplands overlooking the sea. The Welsh Triads claim that Anglesey was once part of the mainland, historically, Anglesey has long been associated with the druids. News of Boudicas revolt reached him just after his victory, causing him to withdraw his army before consolidating his conquest, the island was finally brought into the Roman Empire by Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Roman governor of Britain, in AD78. During the Roman occupation, the area was notable for the mining of copper, the foundations of Caer Gybi as well as a fort at Holyhead are Roman, and the present road from Holyhead to Llanfairpwllgwyngyll was originally a Roman road. The island was grouped by Ptolemy with Ireland rather than with Britain, British Iron Age and Roman sites have been excavated and coins and ornaments discovered, especially by the 19th century antiquarian, William Owen Stanley. Following the Roman departure from Britain in the early 5th century, pirates from Ireland colonised Anglesey, in response to this, Cunedda ap Edern, a Gododdin warlord from Scotland, came to the area and began to drive the Irish out. This was continued by his son Einion Yrth ap Cunedda and grandson Cadwallon Lawhir ap Einion, as an island, Anglesey was in a good defensive position, and so Aberffraw became the site of the court, or Llys, of the Kingdom of Gwynedd
7.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
8.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
9.
Topographic map
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Traditional definitions require a topographic map to show both natural and man-made features. A topographic map is published as a map series, made up of two or more map sheets that combine to form the whole map. A contour line is a line connecting places of equal elevation, however, in the vernacular and day to day world, the representation of relief is popularly held to define the genre, such that even small-scale maps showing relief are commonly called topographic. The study or discipline of topography is a broader field of study. Topographic maps are based on topographical surveys, performed at large scales, these surveys are called topographical in the old sense of topography, showing a variety of elevations and landforms. This is in contrast to older cadastral surveys, which primarily show property, the first multi-sheet topographic map series of an entire country, the Carte géométrique de la France, was completed in 1789. Topographic surveys were prepared by the military to assist in planning for battle, as such, elevation information was of vital importance. As they evolved, topographic map series became a resource in modern nations in planning infrastructure. Excluding borders, each sheet was 44 cm high and up to 66 cm wide, although the project eventually foundered, it left an indexing system that remains in use. TIGER was developed in the 1980s and used in the 1990, digital elevation models were also compiled, initially from topographic maps and stereographic interpretation of aerial photographs and then from satellite photography and radar data. Since all these were government projects funded with taxes and not classified for security reasons. Initial applications were mostly professionalized forms such as innovative surveying instruments, by the mid-1990s, increasingly user-friendly resources such as online mapping in two and three dimensions, integration of GPS with mobile phones and automotive navigation systems appeared. As of 2011, the future of standardized, centrally printed topographical maps is left somewhat in doubt, the various features shown on the map are represented by conventional signs or symbols. For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads and these signs are usually explained in the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet. Topographic maps are commonly called contour maps or topo maps. In the United States, where the national series is organized by a strict 7. 5-minute grid. Topographic maps conventionally show topography, or land contours, by means of contour lines, contour lines are curves that connect contiguous points of the same altitude. In other words, every point on the line of 100 m elevation is 100 m above mean sea level
10.
Ordnance Survey
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Ordnance Survey is a non-ministerial government department which acts as the national mapping agency for Great Britain and is one of the worlds largest producers of maps. Since 1 April 2015 it has operated as Ordnance Survey Ltd, the Ordnance Survey Board remain accountable to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It is also a member of the Public Data Group, the agencys name indicates its original military purpose, mapping Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. There was also a general and nationwide need in light of the potential threat of invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. Ordnance Survey mapping is usually classified as either large-scale or small-scale, the Surveys large-scale mapping comprises maps at six inches to the mile or more and was available as sheets until the 1980s, when it was digitised. Small-scale mapping comprises maps at less than six inches to the mile, such as the one inch to the mile leisure maps. These are still available in sheet form. Ordnance Survey maps remain in copyright for fifty years after their publication, some of the Copyright Libraries hold complete or near-complete collections of pre-digital OS mapping. The origins of the Ordnance Survey lie in the aftermath of the last Jacobite rising which was defeated by forces loyal to the government at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In 1747, Lieutenant-colonel David Watson proposed the compilation of a map of the Highlands to facilitate the subjugation of clans, in response, King George II charged Watson with making a military survey of the Highlands under the command of the Duke of Cumberland. Among Watsons assistants were William Roy, Paul Sandby and John Manson, the survey was produced at a scale of 1 inch to 1000 yards and included the Duke of Cumberlands Map now held in the British Library. This work was the point of the Principal Triangulation of Great Britain. Roys technical skills and leadership set the standard for which Ordnance Survey became known. Work was begun in earnest in 1790 under Roys supervision, when the Board of Ordnance began a military survey starting with the south coast of England. A set of stamps, featuring maps of the Kentish village of Hamstreet, was issued in 1991 to mark the bicentenary. In 1801, the first one-inch-to-the-mile map was published, detailing the county of Kent, during the next twenty years, roughly a third of England and Wales was mapped at the same scale under the direction of William Mudge, as other military matters took precedence. It took until 1823 to re-establish a relationship with the French survey made by Roy in 1787, by 1810, one inch to the mile maps of most of the south of England were completed, but were withdrawn from sale between 1811 and 1816 because of security fears. It was gruelling work, major Thomas Colby, later the longest serving director general of Ordnance Survey, in 1824, Colby and most of his staff moved to Ireland to work on a six-inches-to-the-mile valuation survey
