Geography 7: Map Projections

Map projections are a way of viewing our three-dimensional world in a more simplistic two dimensions. This allows us to view them in a way that allows us to analyze them in the way that we often think of the world. In doing so however, it can often lead to the warping of many aspects of the world, making two maps of the same image or projection drastically different, causing serious problems, especially in navigation. This is made very evident in the differences in miles of the six map projections I have placed below. The fact that these maps are even remotely close in the distance to Washington D.C and Kabul, Afghanistan is rather surprising. Map projections come in three different types: conformal, equidistant, and equal area projections. All three are represented below, each have different purposes, but also different pitfalls.

Conformal maps preserve angular relationships, and in the case of distance make them rather accurate, and thus better for navigation. They allow for distance to be preserved between areas, but in doing so can drastically distort the area of places. This is not a horrible thing, but can cause problems when we consider the fact that these are often the most common form of map projection because they are the easiest to understand without a background in GIS, and are also the simplest to understand spatially. When it comes to politics however, the distortion of area means that certain area or countries are perceived to be more powerful, or taking up more space than others, leading to misunderstandings on a public but also a governmental level. This is especially evident in the two conformal maps I have represented below, specifically the Mercator projection, which displays countries such as Russia to be far larger than they actually are.

Equidistant maps preserve distance from a specific point of origin. In this case I have two maps which preserve both latitudinal and longitudinal distance. The conic is useful in preserving distance longitudinally, but only in the northern hemisphere, which in this case is not helpful, but still coincidentally gives us a fairly accurate estimated distance. The cylindrical one would be more useful for measuring the distance between our two points because they are about the same latitude, but this would not be a good map when wanting to measure distance from north to south. These maps are only useful across clear lines of latitude and longitude, and are not good for diagonal measurements or in maintaining the true shape and area of the world.

The final set of maps deals with maintaining equal area, but not necessarily distance. The Bonne projection even is only useful in maintaining the area of a few places on the map, such as Africa, while the North pole Equal area map is really only useful for the northern hemisphere, and even then is really only accurate close to the north pole. These maps give us a better sense of the way that the world truely is on a more three dimensional platform, but really only in certain areas, and does not deal with distance between places.

Conformal