Flat or flats may refer to:

Architecture

Apartment An apartment (American English, Canadian English), flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), tenement (Scots English), or unit (Australian English) is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that ...

, known as a flat in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and other Commonwealth countries

Arts and entertainment

Flat (music) In music, flat means lower in pitch. It may either be used in a general sense to mean any lowering of pitch, or to specifically refer to lowering pitch by a semitone. A flat is the opposite of a sharp () which indicates a raised pitch in the sa ...

, a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), a two-dimensional toy soldier made of tin or plastic *

Flat (theatre) A flat (short for scenery flat) or coulisse is a flat piece of theatrical scenery which is painted and positioned on stage so as to give the appearance of buildings or other background. Flats can be soft covered (covered with cloth such as musli ...

, a flat piece of theatrical scenery * Flat, a leading type of wordplay, as identified by the National Puzzlers' League * '' Flat!'' (2010), an Indian film *

Flats (band) Flats are a four-piece punk/sludge metal band from East London (with roots in both Palestine and South Wales also). They have their own imprint, Sweat Shop Records, with their last record released in conjunction with Derrick Birkett's One Littl ...

, an English band *

Flats (comics) A flatter is a coloring specialist within the comic book industry that prepares the inked or sketched comic book page for the colorist with digital art software such as Adobe Photoshop. The specialist does so by selecting the objects on the pa ...

, the first stage in the comic coloring process

Footwear

* Flats, footwear which is not high-heeled *

Ballet flat Ballet flats or ballet pumps are a style of shoe. The appearance is inspired by women's ballet shoes, with a very thin heel or the appearance of no heel at all. The style sometimes features a ribbon-like binding around the low tops of the slippe ...

s, derived from ballet shoes, for casual wear as well as dancing *

Ballet shoe A ballet shoe, or ballet slipper, is a lightweight shoe designed specifically for ballet dancing. It may be made from soft leather, canvas, or satin, and has flexible, thin full or split soles. Traditionally, women wear pink shoes and men wear w ...

s (also known as ballet slippers), often referred to as "flats" or "flat shoes" *

Racing flat Racing flats, or simply flats, are lightweight athletic shoes designed for "long distance" track and field, cross country, and most often, road races. They differ from normal training shoes mainly by the lack of a substantial heel to toe drop. ...

s, lightweight shoes used primarily for running a race

Geography

Landforms

Flat (landform) A flat is a relatively level surface of land within a region of greater relief, such as hills or mountains, usually used in the plural. The term is often used to name places with such features, for example, Yucca Flat or Henninger Flats. ''Flat' ...

, a relatively level area within a region of greater relief *

Mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

, intertidal wetland with a substrate of fine sediments

Bodies of water

* Flat, a shallow water area in the context of

boating Boating is the leisurely activity of travelling by boat, or the recreational use of a boat whether powerboats, sailboats, or man-powered vessels (such as rowing and paddle boats), focused on the travel itself, as well as sports activities, suc ...

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

, often used in plural form **

Brewster Flats Cape Cod Bay is a large bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Measuring below a line drawn from Ocean Bluff-Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Brant Rock in Marshfield to Race Point Lighthouse, Race Point in Provinceto ...

, an area of Cape Cod Bay off the shore of Massachusetts, U.S. **

Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm The Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm is a wind farm located off the coast of Kent, England on a large, flat and shallow plateau just outside the main Thames shipping lanes. The wind farm is operated by Vattenfall. Location The distance from th ...

, off the coast of Kent, England **

Rhyl Flats Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm is a 25 turbine wind farm approximately 8 km north east of Llandudno in North Wales. It is Wales' second offshore wind farm and the third offshore wind farm to be built within Liverpool Bay. It has a maximum r ...

, a wind farm off the coast of North Wales * Flat coast, a shoreline where the land descends gradually into the sea

Places

United States

Flat, Alaska Flat is a census-designated place (CDP) in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the population of the CDP was 0, down from 4 residents in 2000. Its post office closed in January 2004. Few buildings are inhab ...

, a census-designated place *

Flat, Kentucky Flat is an unincorporated community in Wolfe County, Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It bor ...

, an unincorporated community *

Flat, Missouri Flat is an unincorporated community in southern Phelps County, Missouri, United States. It is located approximately sixteen miles southwest of Rolla. The community is at the intersection of Missouri routes M and T. Edgar Springs lies about fou ...

, an unincorporated community *

Flat, Texas Flat is a small unincorporated community in Coryell County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Killeen–Temple–Fort Hood metropolitan statistical area. History The area was originally titled "Mesquite Flat" when the town a ...

, an unincorporated community *

Flat Brook Flat Brook, also spelled as Flatbrook, is an U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 tributary of the Delaware River in Sussex County, New Jersey in the United S ...

, a tributary of the Delaware River in Sussex County, New Jersey *

Flats, Nebraska Flats is an extinct town in McPherson County, Nebraska, United States. The GNIS The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and location information about more than two million physical and cultural features, encom ...

, United States *

Flats, West Virginia Flats is an unincorporated community in Hardy County, West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The Uni ...

, an unincorporated community *

Forest Lake Area Trail System The ultimate goal of the Forest Lake Area Trail System (FLATS) is to develop a trail system connecting Kirksville and Thousand Hills State Park. The first phase of the trail is a ten-foot wide concrete trail between the Petroglyph Site and Marina ...

, Missouri

Other

Flat, Puy-de-Dôme Flat () is a former commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne in central France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Aulhat-Flat.Flat Island (disambiguation) Flat Island may refer to: * Flat Island (Antarctica), in Robertson Bay * Flat Island (Hong Kong) * Flat Island (Spratly) in the South China Sea * Flat Island (Falkland Islands) in the south Atlantic Ocean * Flat Island Wildlife Sanctuary, in ...

, in various places *

Flat Islands (disambiguation) Flat Islands may refer to: * Flat Islands (Antarctica) * Flat Islands, Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador * Flat Islands, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador See also * Flat Island (disambiguation) * Flat Isles The Northumberland I ...

, in Canada and Antarctica *

Flat River (disambiguation) Flat River may refer to: Rivers * Flat River (Northwest Territories), a tributary of the South Nahanni River * Flat River (Louisiana) * Flat River (Missouri), a tributary of the Big River * Flat River (Michigan) The Flat River (Ottawa diale ...

, in the United States and Canada

Mathematics and geometry

Flat (geometry) In geometry, a flat is an affine subspace, i.e. a subset of an affine space that is itself an affine space. Particularly, in the case the parent space is Euclidean, a flat is a Euclidean subspace which inherits the notion of distance from it ...

, the generalization of lines and planes in an ''n''-dimensional Euclidean space *

Flat (matroids) In combinatorics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid axiomatically, the most significant being in terms of: independent ...

, a further generalization of flats from linear algebra to the context of matroids *

Flat module In algebra, flat modules include free modules, projective modules, and, over a principal ideal domain, torsion-free modules. Formally, a module (mathematics), module ''M'' over a ring (mathematics), ring ''R'' is ''flat'' if taking the tensor prod ...

in ring theory *

Flat morphism In mathematics, in particular in algebraic geometry, a flat morphism ''f'' from a scheme (mathematics), scheme ''X'' to a scheme ''Y'' is a morphism such that the induced map on every Stalk (sheaf), stalk is a flat map of rings, i.e., :f_P\colon \ ...

in algebraic geometry *

Flat space In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry that intuitively measure the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line or by which a surface deviates from being a plane. If a curve or sur ...

, a space with zero curvature * Flat sign, for its use in mathematics; see

musical isomorphism In mathematics—more specifically, in differential geometry—the musical isomorphism (or canonical isomorphism) is an isomorphism between the tangent bundle \mathrmM and the cotangent bundle \mathrm^* M of a Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian ...

, mapping vectors to covectors

People

Nickname

* Earl "Flat" Chase (1910–1954), Canadian baseball player * Flat Walsh (1897–1959), Canadian ice hockey goaltender

Fictional characters

* Flat Eric, a character in some Levi's commercials * '' Flat Stanley'', namesake of an American children's book series

Groups

* FLATS or First Lady Astronaut Trainees, American women who underwent NASA Project Mercury physiological screening tests

Other uses

Flat (gridiron football) The flat in gridiron football is the area of the field extending ten yards into the defensive backfield from the line of scrimmage and extending outside the hash marks to the out-of-bounds lines (a distance of about 15 yards). Offenses will typic ...

, the area of the gridiron football field * Flat butterflies or flats, certain skipper butterfly genera in subfamily

Pyrginae Pyrginae, commonly known as spread-winged skippers, are a subfamily of the skipper butterfly family (biology), family (Hesperiidae). The subfamily was established by Hermann Burmeister in 1878. Their delimitation and internal systematics has chan ...

: ** ''

Calleagris ''Calleagris'' is a genus of skipper (butterfly), skippers in the family Hesperiidae. Species *''Calleagris hollandi'' (Butler, 1897) *''Calleagris jamesoni'' (Sharpe, 1890) *''Calleagris kobela'' (Trimen, 1864) *''Calleagris krooni'' Vári, 197 ...

'' (scarce flats), ** '' Celaenorrhinus'' of tribe Celaenorrhinini; ** ''

Eagris ''Eagris'' is a genus of skippers in the family Hesperiidae Skippers are a group of butterflies placed in the family Hesperiidae within the order Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). They were previously placed in a separate superfamily, Hesp ...

'', and ** ''

Tagiades ''Tagiades'', commonly known as snow flats, is a genus of spread-winged skipper butterflies. It is the type genus of the tribe Tagiadini of the subfamily Pyrginae in the family Hesperiidae. It contains seventeen species; three of which are foun ...

'' (water flats, snow flats), of tribe Tagiadini *

Flat (USPS) The United States Postal Service uses the words "flats" and "nonletters" interchangeably to refer to large envelopes, newsletters, and magazines. Size restrictions To fit the definition a flat must: *Have one dimension that is greater than 6-1/ ...

, an oversized letter *

Optical flat An optical flat is an Optics, optical-grade piece of glass lapping, lapped and polishing, polished to be extremely flat on one or both sides, usually within a few tens of nanometres (billionths of a metre). They are used with a monochromatic li ...

, an extremely flat piece of glass