What is distorted on a Mercator map?
What is distorted on a Mercator map?
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.
Are distances on the Mercator map accurate?
Accuracy. One measure of a map’s accuracy is a comparison of the length of corresponding line elements on the map and globe. Therefore, by construction, the Mercator projection is perfectly accurate, k = 1, along the equator and nowhere else.
What is the difference between the Gall Peters and the Mercator projection?
In addition, Mercator only distorts longitudinal distances (except very close to the poles), whereas Peters screws up the scale almost everywhere for both longitude and latitude. This is why Mercator beats out Peters in the world of cartography, and why Google Maps uses a modified Mercator projection.
What are the 4 map projections?
What Are the Different 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 is better than Mercator projection?
The Gall-Peters projection (shown below) makes seeing the relative size of places much easier. Despite these benefits, the Gall-Peters projection has its flaws. It doesn’t enlarge areas as much as the Mercator projection, but certain places appear stretched, horizontally near the poles and vertically near the Equator.
What is the Robinson projection best used for?
The Robinson projection is unique. Its primary purpose is to create visually appealing maps of the entire world. It is a compromise projection; it does not eliminate any type of distortion, but it keeps the levels of all types of distortion relatively low over most of the map.
Where can I find data on Mercator projection?
SRTM is an international project spearheaded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The SRTM data are available at the USGS’s EROS Data Center for download via file transfer protocol.
Which is the second edition of Mercator and Hondius?
Important second edition of Mercator and Hondius’ Map of the Arctic showing a break with 16th century cartographic convention. Septentrionalium Terrarum descriptio. This is the second edition of Gerard Mercator’s map of the North Pole or Arctic, one of the great cartographer’s most interesting and important maps.
Why is the Mercator the most used map in the world?
Thus, the things that are chosen to be distorted in a map provides us with clear insight into human behavior. The map most commonly used in the world is the Mercator map. This is the map that we see in classrooms all over the world. This is also the map that formulates our basic ideas of what our planet looks like.
What did Mercator say about the polar islands?
One of the large polar islands, located north of Norway, Mercator claims is the home to a band of female Pygmies. This too references the old English voyages described in the Inventio Fortunata.
