The purpose of geographic tools is to give a useful perspective and representation of a landscape to the view. For this reason geographic tools tell us about locations and the distances between locations. They also strive to give some type of context to the areas in question by relating them to information in a legend and to surrounding areas.
Scales are extremely important in geography because they allow very large distances to be reduces to mere centimetres on a digital or paper map. It would be very impractical to produce a map the size of a small country in order to travel between two cities that are far apart, but scale solves this problem. In digital applications the scale changes as the user zooms in and out, giving even more flexibility.
Topography can be used on maps to delineate areas. An example would be the rough-looking terrain that is used in mapmaking to denote mountains. When the viewer sees the terrain marked as mountains or the blue areas marked as bodies of water, he/she knows that at those points on the map the areas are distinct to those marked with other colours or textures.
