Since the Earth is flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator, the geometrical figure used in geodesy to most nearly approximate Earth’s shape is an oblate spheroid. An oblate spheroid, or oblate ellipsoid, is an ellipsoid of revolution obtained by rotating an ellipse about its shorter axis. A spheroid describing the figure of the Earth or other celestial body is called a reference ellipsoid.
In geodetic surveying, the computation of the geodetic coordinates of points is commonly performed on a reference ellipsoid closely approximating the size and shape of the Earth in the area of the survey. The actual measurements made on the surface of the Earth with certain instruments are however referred to the geoid.
→ http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/Figure_of_the_Earth
→ by Tom Proctor (copied 2018-130) - CC-BY-SA