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Lesson Navigation IconFundamental spatial concepts

Unit Navigation IconThe Scale

Unit Navigation IconGeoreferencing: Positioning and Projections

Unit Navigation IconSpatial Relations

Unit Navigation IconTopology, fundamental concept

LO Navigation IconTopological relations

LO Navigation IconAdjacency

LO Navigation IconConnectivity

LO Navigation IconInclusion

LO Navigation IconIntersection

LO Navigation IconMultiple-choice test

Unit Navigation IconSpatial Distance and Properties of the Environment

Unit Navigation IconGlossary

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Topological relations

The concept of topology is a common approach of human's mind to determine the reality. The visual perception is topological. When people look at landscapes, or when they consult a map or a plan, their immediate perception is global. Objects such as buildings, forests, agglomerations are perceived in the whole context. The term of neighborhood is implicit: There is a river traversing the agglomeration, M. Dupond's parcel borders on M. Schmidt's parcel.
That means, because of the perception of geographic space, topology is the collective of all the detected relations. This allows observers to locate objects in relation to other objects. Which object is next to another object? The "neighborhood" is therefore a spatial notion.
The concept of topology is a fundamental element in spatial analysis. Without it, it would be impossible to extract information about the neighborhood or about a river's drainage direction from the database. The concept of topology is known in several disciplines.
Mathematics gives a rigorous definition: "Propriétés des êtres géométriques subsistant après une déformation continue, et qui fait abstraction de la notion de distance". Sometimes it's also called: Geometry without metrics. In other disciplines, the meaning of topology is broader. In social sciences, topology is an arrangement, a configuration of people and their relations.

Les situations a, b et c de la figure           sont équivalentes du point de vue topologique.Les situations a, b et c de la figure sont équivalentes du point de vue topologique.

In GIS topology is used to get information about the proximity between the elements. The topological relations in this context are the adjacency, the connectivity, the inclusion and the intersection.

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