A topological space M satisfying some separability (i.e., it is a T_2-space) and countability (i.e., it is a paracompact space) conditions such that every point p element M has a neighborhood homeomorphic to an open set in R^n for some n>=0. Every smooth manifold is a topological manifold, but not necessarily vice versa. The first nonsmooth topological manifold occurs in four dimensions. Nonparacompact manifolds are of little use in mathematics, but non-Hausdorff manifolds do occasionally arise in research. For manifolds, Hausdorff and second countable are equivalent to Hausdorff and paracompact, and both are equivalent to the manifold being embeddable in some large-dimensional Euclidean space.

manifold | paracompact space | smooth manifold | T_2-space | topological space