Classification compact Riemann Surfaces

Some magic words for this question are "moduli space" or "moduli stack". In the early days, one was interested in a variety or variety-like object which would classify projective complex curves (compact Riemann surfaces) of given genus $g$, i.e., whose points correspond to isomorphism classes of curves (or biholomorphism classes of compact Riemann surfaces). This is nowadays called a "coarse moduli space". As GH and François commented, there is a whole continuum of points in the coarse moduli space of genus 1; the same is true for any genus $g > 1$.

Over time, it became apparent that the coarse moduli space is not a very pleasant thing the most fundamental object of study. Some information that is desirable to have that the coarse moduli space misses is: what are the possible automorphisms on a fixed compact Riemann surface? For example, in the case of an elliptic curve (genus 1), the automorphism group is infinite and acts transitively on the curve. (Edit: this remark may be slightly misleading because it is more usual to consider elliptic curves with a chosen origin, and this cuts way down on the automorphism group. Thanks to Donu Arapura for pointing this out in comments.) Not so in higher genus; curves of higher genus are much more rigid, and in fact have only finite automorphism groups.

(I think to me this was a bigger shock than finding out about the plenitude of complex manifold structures on a given curve. In ordinary smooth manifold theory, all the points are pretty much alike, in that one can construct a diffeomorphism that takes one point to another. But in complex curve theory, points can have different "personalities"; for example, cf. Weierstrass points.)

Anyway, the better object of study in these questions, which parametrizes not only isomorphism classes of curves but also isomorphisms between them, is called a moduli stack. You can begin reading about them here.


The answer is no. For example, if $\Lambda_1$ and $\Lambda_2$ are two lattices in $\mathbb{C}$, then the surfaces $\mathbb{C}/\Lambda_1$ and $\mathbb{C}/\Lambda_2$ are conformally equivalent if and only if $\Lambda_1$ and $\Lambda_2$ are similar. This follows from the theory of elliptic functions (or elliptic curves).


Identify the opposite sides of the unit square to get a torus $A$. Identify the opposite sides of a rectangle of side lengths $\pi$ and $\frac{1}{\pi}$ to get a torus $B$.

The extremal length of every closed curve in $A$ is an algebraic integer, which is not true of $B$. Since the set of extremal lengths of curves is a conformal invariant, $A$ and $B$ are not biholomorphic.