Unlike maps, which portray the pysical and cultural landscape with generalized symbols and colors, aerial photography reveals the terrain as it exist in nature. All buildings, bridges, roads, urban and rural areas, and other man-made features are depicted as they were at the time photography. Physical features, such as vegetation type and distribution, river widths and courses, shorelines, landslide areas, etc. are shown with detail that no map can depict.
Aerial photography is, therefore, extremely useful both for specific site evaluation and for regional analysis, as well as for historical perspectives. It is used by engineers, architects, city and regional planners, geographers, geologists and historians.