In 1569, Mercator published his epic world map. This map, with its Mercator projection, was designed
to help sailors navigate around the globe
. They could use latitude and longitude lines to plot a straight route. Mercator’s projection laid out the globe as a flattened version of a cylinder.
What does the Mercator projection preserve?
Although the linear scale is equal in all directions around any point, thus preserving
the angles and the shapes of small objects
, the Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite.
What is the Mercator projection best used for?
This projection is widely used for
navigation charts
, because any straight line on a Mercator projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.
Why is the Mercator projection popular and useful?
Cylindrical Projection – Mercator
One of the most famous map projections is the Mercator, created by a Flemish cartographer and geographer, Geradus Mercator in 1569. It became the
standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant true direction.
What projection did Mercator use?
Therefore, Mercator himself used
the equal-area sinusoidal projection
to show relative areas. However, despite such distortions, the Mercator projection was, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, perhaps the most common projection used in world maps, despite being much criticized for this use.
What is wrong with the Mercator projection?
Mercator maps distort the shape and relative size of continents, particularly near the poles. … The popular Mercator projection distorts
the relative size of landmasses
, exaggerating the size of land near the poles as compared to areas near the equator.
What are the pros and cons of the Mercator projection?
Advantage: The Mercator map projection
shows the correct shapes of the continents and directions accurately
. Disadvantage: The Mercator map projection does not show true distances or sizes of continents, especially near the north and south poles.
What is wrong with the Robinson projection?
Distortion. The Robinson projection is neither conformal nor equal-area. It
generally distorts shapes, areas, distances, directions, and angles
. … Area distortion grows with latitude and does not change with longitude.
What are the 4 types of map projections?
| Rank Map Projection Name Examples | 1 Cylindrical Mercator, Cassini, Equirectangular | 2 Pseudocylindrical Mollweide, Sinusoidal, Robinson | 3 Conic Lambert conformal conic, Albers conic | 4 Pseudoconical Bonne, Bottomley, Werner, American polyconic |
|---|
What four distortions are there in the Robinson projection?
There are four main types of distortion that come from map projections:
distance, direction, shape and area
.
What are the 3 main map projections?
This group of map projections can be classified into three types:
Gnomonic projection, Stereographic projection and Orthographic projection
.
Which projection is best?
- Mercator. This projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator back in 1569 for navigational purposes. …
- Robinson. This map is known as a ‘compromise’, it shows neither the shape or land mass of countries correct. …
- Dymaxion Map. …
- Gall-Peters. …
- Sinu-Mollweide. …
- Goode’s Homolosine. …
- AuthaGraph. …
- Hobo-Dyer.
What is the most accurate flat map projection to use?
The lower the score, the smaller the errors and the better the map. A globe of the Earth would have an error score of 0.0. We found that the best previously known flat map projection for the globe is
the Winkel tripel
used by the National Geographic Society, with an error score of 4.563.
Who uses the Mercator projection?
This is usually used in
modern cartography, marine charts
, and several maps used for climatology and meteorology. See the fact file below for more information on the Mercator Projection or alternatively, you can download our 23-page Mercator Projection worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Why is the Mercator map still in use today?
In 1569, Mercator published his epic world map. This map, with its Mercator projection, was designed to help sailors navigate around the globe. They could use latitude and longitude lines to plot a straight route. … Despite these distortions, Mercator’s projection is
still heavily used today
.
Why are world maps wrong?
Maps and globes, like speeches or paintings, are authored by humans and are
subject to distortions
. These distortions can occur through alterations to scale, symbols, projection, simplification, and choices around the map’s content.
