The terrace[1]​ is the usable flat roof of a building—the roof—, which in some areas of southern Spain is called terrado[2]​ and in the Alpujarra Granadina (Granada), the province of Almería and the Region of Murcia terrao, also terreno.[3]​ The outside area of ​​a restaurant, a cafe or bar, where customers can sit outside in the open air, is also called a terrace.[4]​.

It is also the open-air area of ​​the house, the habitable exterior extension of a home above ground level, provided with railings or low walls.

Although its physical characteristics vary, a terrace has railings or walls, sometimes it has no cover and is wider than a balcony.[5]​.

It arises as a usable extension of flat-roofed houses, in sunny regions, with low rainfall, such as those of Ancient Egypt and the coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea. It is used again profusely with the Modern Movement when considering, in high-rise residential buildings, creating an outdoor living space, well sunny, with plants, trying to imitate the characteristics of the porches of single-family homes.

The terraos are a type of roof for the traditional houses of sharecroppers and shepherds on the coastal strip of the province of Almería, the Alpujarra Granadina and the Region of Murcia. They were built on wooden beams (20 for each room or even pitracos in times of famine) that rested on the load-bearing walls that supported a layer of reed interwoven with ropes of green esparto grass "Esparto (fiber)") around the thicker reeds. Next, a bed of albardin leaf litter, a layer of clayey mud and a layer of compacted impermeable clay such as launa earth. Normally these terraces had square chimneys for the flue of the home's chimneys, skylights, parapets around the perimeter of the terrace and pipes embedded in the parapets. They had a flat or slightly inclined geometry. During the rains, which were scarce and torrential, the launa earth formed an impermeable paste.[6]​[7]​.