Map Projections

Waterman Butterfly

A 14-sided polyhedral projection addressing both distortion and partitioning of land masses.

Dymaxion

A map created by Fuller, because he thought N, S, E, W were outdated. It is accurate in shapes and sizes of land, but it distorts distance and direction.

Azimuthal (polar)

A map which shows true compass directions; longitude lines are straight and latitude lines are circles; distorts shape and size more toward the outer edges.

Winkel-Tripel

A modified azimuthal map projection, has the best balance between size, shape, distance and direction; map projection of choice by National Geographic

Robinson

A projection that maintains overall shapes and relative positions without extreme distortion. It does not maintain completely accurate area, shape, distance, or direction, but it minimizes errors in each.

Sinusoidal

A smoothly curving map that accurately presents the center of the map but the outside remains distorted.

Mollweide

A type of homolographic map projection in which the surface of the earth is represented as an ellipse, with the equator and parallels of latitude as straight lines; Shows size of area relatively well, oval shaped, used to show direction of things, distorts shape and direction

Gall-Peters

Map created by a geographer to show the relative sizes of the earth's continents accurately (equal area). However, it distorts shape, so it is not conformal.

Miller cylindrical

Modified Mercator projection; Avoids the relative-size distortions of the Mercator projection, but direction is only accurate along the equator.

Mercator

The Mercator projection is particularly useful for navigation because it maintains accurate direction. Mercator projections are famous for their distortion in area that makes landmasses at the poles appear oversized.

Goode's Homolosine

The orange peel map; is an equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps. Normally it is presented with multiple interruptions. Shows true size and shape of earth's landmasses.