Topographic prominence

In topography, prominence, also known as autonomous height, relative height or shoulder drop (in America) or prime factor (in Europe), is a concept that is used in the categorization of hills and mountains, also known as peaks. It is a measure of the independent stature of a summit.

The prominence of a peak is the height of the peak’s summit above the lowest contour line encircling it and no higher summit.

Related pages

• topography

Other websites

• K2 prominence
• http://www.peaklist.org a website about mountain prominence, with lists and/or maps covering the entire world down to 1500m of prominence (the "ultras").
• Prominence at the County Highpointers This page contains links to all relevant on-line prominence resources — including peak lists, climbing records, prominence cell maps, "completion maps", and trip reports. By Adam Helman.
• Prominence and Orometry a detailed and lucid account by Aaron Maizlish of the theory of prominence.
• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/prominence/ Yahoo! Groups, Topographic prominence discussion
• Prominence Front Runners Prominence-oriented climbing records. Lists are maintained by Andy Martin and hosted at cohp.org .
• Edward Earl’s article on Topographic Prominence
• Index to definitions in the Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia
• Mountain Hierarchies a description of the different systems of defining parent peak
• Mountain Hierarchy using Prominence Islands
• Surface Network Modelling on the Center for Advanced Surface Analysis website
• Surface Network ModellingPDF (2.13 MiB) a paper by Sanjay Rana and Jeremy Morley
• The 100 most prominent peaks in Colorado
• Alan Dawson's The Relative Hills of Britain