What type of map shows different heights of the Earth's surface using shading, colors, or lines?

Relief maps are specifically designed to represent the varying elevations and terrain of the Earth's surface through the use of shading, colors, or lines. These maps provide a three-dimensional portrayal of landforms, making it easier to visualize hills, valleys, and mountains. The shading technique helps to depict lighter or darker areas that correspond to different heights, allowing viewers to quickly assess the topography of a given area.

In contrast, contour maps utilize lines to indicate elevation levels at regular intervals, which can also depict the terrain’s shape but do not typically include shading or coloring to illustrate height differences as effectively as relief maps. Navigational maps primarily focus on routes and directions, and while they may display some topographical features, they do not emphasize elevation like relief maps do. Mercator projections are a type of map projection used mainly for navigation because of their straight lines for latitude and longitude, but they distort size and shape and are not specifically designed to convey elevation information.