Which Map Is Best?

Abstract

A map projection is what cartographers call the system by which the rounded surface of the Earth is transformed in order to display it on a flat surface. It is not easy. Numerous ways have been devised, but no matter how one does it, something will be wrong with the shapes and relative sizes of regions and the distances and directions among places.

This chapter is slightly modified version of the Special Publication No. 1 of the American Cartographic Association, a member organization of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, 210 Little Falls Street, Falls Church, VA 22046. The Special Publication No. 1, ISBN 0-9613459-1-8, has been published in 1986 by the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping.

In that time, the Committee on Map Projections consisted of the following distinguished members: James R. Carter, Marshall B. Faintich, Patricia Caldwell Lindgren, Barbara B. Petchenik, Arthur H. Robinson and John P. Snyder, Chairman. Text and design was by Arthur H. Robinson, computer plotting of projections and coastlines by Waldo R. Tobler and preparation of graphics by the University of Wisconsin Cartographic Laboratory.

Permission granted by Eric Anderson, Executive Director for CaGIS, 2011–2016