These characteristics include distance, direction, shape, and area. So, for example, on the Mercator projection, Greenland and Antarctica appear much larger relative to land masses near the equator than they actually are. This world map design solves the problem of extreme distortions in commonly used world maps.
The shape of all nations, land masses and waters are presented with the least amount of distortion in this projection. However, Mercator is one of those rare maps whose answer to latitudinal distortion was to ensure that the longitudinal distortion is equally bad! On a Mercator projection, Greenland is roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Africa is almost 14 times larger , and Greenland can fit inside China no less than four times. The map also suggests that Scandinavian countries are larger than India, whereas, India is actually three times the size.
The biggest criticism for the skewed Mercator projection came in from German filmmaker and journalist Arno Peters. Peters argued that by enlarging Europe and North America, Mercator maps were giving white nations a sense of supremacy over non-white nations. His solution? An equal-area projection that would show the correct sizes of countries relative to each other.
Not that the Gall-Peters projection came without any flaws. In its quest of removing size distortions, the map stretched some places near the poles horizontally to a shocking degree. It also stretched land masses vertically near the Equator. Suggested: Do you know how maps of Game of Thrones were created? American geographer and cartographer Arthur H. Robinson intended the map, which is neither equal-area nor conformal, as a general purpose tool.
I started with a kind of artistic approach. I visualized the best-looking shapes and sizes. Then I figured out the mathematical formula to produce that effect. Most mapmakers start with the mathematics. Interesting: Which map did Christopher Columbus use?
Proposed by German cartographer Oswald Winkel in , the Winkel-Tripel projection is quite the opposite of Robinson.
This map projection shows Greenland as the same size as Argentina, and not as the size of all of South America. The National Geographic Society has been drawing all its standard maps using the Winkel-Tripel projection since , and many US schools have followed suit. Must see: These 5 tools will let you master map projections. This is hands-down the most accurate map projection in existence.
In fact, AuthaGraph World Map is so proportionally perfect, it magically folds it into a three-dimensional globe. Japanese architect Hajime Narukawa invented this projection in by equally dividing a spherical surface into 96 triangles.
It stretches or twists or squashes them, instead. Contrast that with a Lambert Conformal Conic below , on the other hand, which preserves the general form of the landmasses.
Projections like this are called conformal projections. Under the hood, this property is actually a little more complex: comformal projections actually preserve local angles. But what that boils down to for cartographers is that places look more like themselves. In the example below, Greenland is shown as it appears on three conformal projections top row and three non-conformal projections bottom row. Notice how the conformal projections keep Greenland looking Greenlandy.
On the other hand, the Azimuthal Equidistant projection shows distances in the correct proportion. There are only projections that let you preserve distances relative to just one or two points on the map.
Distances to and from the center of an Azimuthal Equidistant map are shown correctly, but distances between any other two points are distorted. When a projection preserves distance, we call it equidistant.
This can be a bit confusing, but makes more sense if you try it yourself: find a globe and place a piece of string on it. Pin one end to New York and one to Istanbul, and pull the string taut. We call these curved shortest-distance paths great circle routes. On the other hand, a path like the straight line, where you keep yourself pointed in the exact same compass direction the whole time, is called a rhumb line or a loxodrome. Some projections, like the Mercator above, show loxodromes as straight lines.
They make air and ship navigation easy, because you just have to draw a straight line, point your ship in that direction, and start sailing. Other projections show great circle routes as straight lines, making it easy to figure out the shortest distance between two places.
The Stereographic projection is one of these. Now the straight line is the great circle, and the curved one is the loxodrome. These lines are the same as in the Mercator above, but the projection changes their appearance. When a projection preserves great circle routes as straight lines, we call it an azimuthal projection. Unfortunately, much like the equidistant projections, it only works for one point at a time.
In the Stereographic above, the projection is centered on New York. Only straight lines coming into or going out of New York will be great circles. If you skim through the example images above, you may notice that, as a general trend, distortions tend to get worse and worse as you get near the edges of the map.
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