What is an example of map projection?

Examples are: Azimuthal Equidistant, Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area, Orthographic, and Stereographic (often used for Polar regions). Other Projections include a variety of specialized or fanciful types. A good site is the Gallery of Map Projections. A nicely arranged, comprehensive set of sample projections.

What is a Mercator projection used for?

Mercator is a conformal cylindrical map projection that was originally created to display accurate compass bearings for sea travel. An additional feature of this projection is that all local shapes are accurate and correctly defined at infinitesimal scale. It was presented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

What is unique about Mercator projection?

It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and south as down everywhere while preserving local directions and shapes. The map is thereby conformal. As a side effect, the Mercator projection inflates the size of objects away from the equator.

What is Mercator projection for kids?

Mercator Projection is a cylindrical projection of a map in a way that all latitudes have the same length as the equator.

How does the Mercator projection work?

Mercator is a conformal map projection. Directions, angles, and shapes are maintained at infinitesimal scale. Any straight line drawn on this projection represents an actual compass bearing. These true direction lines are rhumb lines and generally do not describe the shortest distance between points.

Why is the Mercator projection useful?

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. All the latitude and longitude lines intersected at 90-degree angles.

What is Mercator projection in simple words?

Definition of Mercator projection : a conformal map projection of which the meridians are usually drawn parallel to each other and the parallels of latitude are straight lines whose distance from each other increases with their distance from the equator.

What is the Mercator projection used for?

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.