Why is the Mercator projection accurate?

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.

Why is the Mercator projection a distortion of truth?

The popular Mercator projection distorts the relative size of landmasses, exaggerating the size of land near the poles as compared to areas near the equator. This map shows that in reality, Brazil is almost as large as Canada, even though it appears to be much smaller on Mercator maps.

Why do we use the Mercator 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. All the latitude and longitude lines intersected at 90-degree angles.

What is the biggest advantage of the Mercator projection?

Advantages of the Mercator projection Navigation: The biggest advantage is ease of navigation. The Mercator map projection uses a basis of rectangular latitude and longitude lines. These lines preserves the true geometric angles between each country.

Why is the Mercator map projection especially useful for navigation on the surface of the earth?

This projection is widely used for navigation charts, because any straight line on a Mercator projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.

What does the Mercator projection distort?

Although the linear scale is equal in all directions around any point, thus preserving the angles and the shapes of small objects, the Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite. …

What are the disadvantages of the Mercator map?

Advantage: The Mercator map projection shows the correct shapes of the continents and directions accurately. Disadvantage: The Mercator map projection does not show true distances or sizes of continents, especially near the north and south poles.

What are some of the negatives of the Mercator projection?

Disadvantages: Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the Equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite. So, for example, Greenland and Antarctica appear much larger relative to land masses near the equator than they actually are.

Why does Google Maps use Mercator projection?

Google Maps mainly uses the Mercator projection because it allows to preserve the angles. That’s why they decided to go to Mercator, because although zooming in on a continental scale introduces distortion, at the level of city maps is much more appropriate.

What is the Mercator projection good for what are the main advantages and disadvantages of Mercator map of projection?

Advantages of Mercator’s projection: – preserves angles and therefore also shapes of small objects – close to the equator, the distortion of lengths and areas is insignificant – a straight line on the map corresponds with a constant compass direction, it is possible to sail and fly using a constant azimuth – simple …

What is the main disadvantage of a Mercator projection map?

What are the pros and cons of the Mercator projection?

This is how to navigate using the Mercator. Mercator Pros and Cons: Pros: 1. Being a cylindrical projection, the Mercator shows a great deal of the globe and is thus very good for world maps. 2. The Mercator is also conformal so shapes are preserved. These maps are therefore good for learning continents, oceans, and nations. 3.

What was the original purpose of the Mercator projection?

The original purpose of the projection was to improve on the previous Mercator Projection that inlargared some countries. The original purpose of the projection was to provide a map that portrays global area relationships. He created this map to give an alternative to the Mercator Projection.

What are the main features of the Mercator projection?

The Mercator projection is a conformal one meaning that angles and direction are preserved within a small area while distance is distorted. On some occasions the cylinder is rotated; transverse and oblique Mercator projections exist. These projections are generally used to represent specific geographic areas.

Why are we still using Mercator projection?

This projection is widely used for navigation charts, because any straight line on a Mercator projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course. It is less practical for world maps, however, because the scale is distorted; areas farther away from the Equator appear disproportionately large.