Map Projections

Every map of the earth has some kind of distortion Every map of the earth has some kind of distortion. It could be distance, shape, size or direction.

Mercator The big flaw is that size and distance near the poles is greatly distorted. It’s old (1500s)

Robinson Polar areas are flattened, but it generally just has minor distortions.

Goode’s Interrupted Equal-Area Shows true size and shape of landmasses but distances are distorted.

Winkel Tripel Projection Most used projection in reference maps because it does the best of balancing distortions. Even the poles have little distortion.

Latitude and Longitude Latitude lines run laterally across the globe to show distance from the equator. Longitude lines run up and down the globe and converge at the poles to show how far something is east or west from the Prime Meridian (which runs right through London).

International Date Line Let’s hope the good people at YouTube can take care of this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1DkiuaFCuA

Types of Maps: Reference maps: They show location of geographic features. They often display boundaries, names, physical features or roads.

Topographic maps are one main type of reference map Topographic maps are one main type of reference map. They show contour lines of elevation and include key landscape features. Used for engineering surveys and land navigation.

The following are all examples of thematic maps:

Choropleth maps: Express geographic variability of a particular theme using color variations.

Isoline maps: Contour lines used to show something like temperature variation.

Isoline for sunshine hours

Dot density map: They use dots to express volume and density of a particular geographic feature.

Flow line map: Use lines of varying thickness to show the direction and volume of a particular geographic movement pattern.

Cartogram: They use simplified geometrics to represent real world places (political boundaries become polygons).