Abstract: A terrain server provides access to a central database of terrain elevation and other geographical, political, and industrial feature data (terrain data). Systems requiring terrain data, called clients, send requests for such data to the terrain server when such data is needed. The terrain server retrieves, processes, and transmits the terrain data as specified by received requests. Processing necessary to access and format the data as required by the client is performed by the terrain server in accordance with parameters specified in the requests. Specialized formatting, merging of data from different databases, and the combining of dynamic data from other systems is alternatively performed by the terrain server.