For example on wikipedia for Switzerland it says the country has an area of 41,285 km². Does this take into account that a lot of that area is actually angled at a steep inclination, thus the actual surface area is in effect larger than what you would expect when looking onto a map in satellite view?

  • geogle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    No. It’s a flat approximation. The short answer is that once you take account for topography, your answer will always grow with surface resolution, and thus the actual surface area of rough topography is undefined.