Grassmanian manifold

Given a vector space V of dimension n and an integer r<n, G(r,V) is the smooth manifold of r-planes of V. It is a generalization of the projective space.
The dimension is

r×(n−r).

The key geometric idea is: deforming an r-plane means specifying how each of its r directions tilts into the complementary (n−r)-dimensional directions.