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> Created by the cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, the projection distorts continent sizes AIUI the important word here is ‘nagivation’. If you us

• immibis 1y ago
  It depends. Some distort angles. Others distort distances. Some distort both, but only half as much. You can't have neither.
  • spwa4 1y ago
    Well, this one doesn't distort angles, and tries to get the entire world in a paper for practicality. Whilst you can change the parameters, you cannot make anything near the equator big. Maps like Mercator are the only square maps where if you measure an angle to a destination where you stand and on the map, and then follow the resulting angle in a straight line, you actually get where you're going. This is especially important for ships, as they travel long distances, and the longer the distance, the more wrong other maps will lead you. But politicians, of course, declare that ego is more important. I love what most local maps do in atlasses these days. They use local projections, and for anything up to the size of, say, the state of New York (or smaller) that will have very, very close to the properties of a globe. This does of course show that atlasses try to be practical and produce useful maps. Not ego-based maps.