Question about Taris

Carth says the planet is one big city, other sources of information reveal taris to have once had an ocean, and when you look at the planet from the endar spire all you see is a beige colored sphere with a sliver of blue running through it. When the ebon hawk escapes and the scene plays out where you can see the orbital bombardment while the hawk flies free, you can see that all the buildings are only in the blue sliver area, leaving the rest of the planet void? I presume? All that beige coloring, if not ocean, what is it? Because it certainly isnt cityscape. It must just be empty barren lifeless plains or something. I am big into geography so I just thought I would pop this question because it confused me for awhile.