Chapter 3 notes
Map Projections
Projection
Advantage
Disadvantage
Mercator
Shows the whole world
except extreme polar
regions on one map. They
show directions as straight
lines and are useful for
navigators at sea.
Accurately shows the
shortest distance between
two points Useful in
planning ocean or air
voyages and for showing
the polar areas.
Useful for mapping large
areas of land that fall in the
middle latitudes, such as the
U.S., Landforms have their
true shape and size in
relation to each other.
Distorts the areas near the
poles
Gnomic
Polyconic
Distorts the landmass
shapes away from center
point.
The more distant an
landform is from where the
“paper” touches the sphere,
the more distorted the
landform is likely to be.
Map scales
1. Verbal: expressed in words and figures, such as “1 inch to 50 miles’
2. Graphical: using graphs, lines divided into segments
3. Ratio: one unit on the map equals x number of units on earth. Units must match, for
example, 1:100,000 might read 1 cm = 100,000 cm