the mercator projection which you read about as popular map course

What does a Mercator map accurately show?

The mercator projection, which you read about, is a popular map for plotting courses. what one characteristic of this projection remains true or undistorted no …

Is the Mercator the most popular map projection?

Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) was a great Renaissance cartographer whose work shaped the identity of the modern world. Using the latest reports of new discoveries, he created innovative maps which became known throughout Europe. A creative and skillful craftsman, he invented the map projection which bears his name and coined the term "atlas".

How do you describe a Mercator map projection?

Which map projection do you like the best?1. Mercator. This projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator back in 1569 for navigational purposes. Its ability to represent lines of constant course from coast to coast made it the perfect map for sailing the seas.What is the most popular map projectio

What issues are there with the Mercator map projection?

Aug 10, 2021 · The Mercator Projection How a 400-year-old map is guiding today’s electric cars Here’s a handy piece of trivia to parse out at dinner parties — the mapping system used in most modern electric...

Why is the Mercator projection of maps popular?

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.Mar 1, 2022

What does a Mercator projection map show?

Description. Mercator is a conformal cylindrical map projection that was originally created to display accurate compass bearings for sea travel. An additional feature of this projection is that all local shapes are accurate and correctly defined at infinitesimal scale. It was presented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

Is the Mercator map the best map?

1. Mercator. This projection was developed by Gerardus Mercator back in 1569 for navigational purposes. Its ability to represent lines of constant course from coast to coast made it the perfect map for sailing the seas.Aug 31, 2019

Why is Mercator so popular?

Because of its very common usage, the Mercator projection has been supposed to have influenced people's view of the world, and because it shows countries near the Equator as too small when compared to those of Europe and North America, it has been supposed to cause people to consider those countries as less important.

How did Mercator make his map?

In 1569, Mercator developed a better, more accurate projection. Although the execution was difficult, the basic idea was simple: Imagine a globe with a paper cylinder wrapped around it — Mercator projected that globe onto the paper and then unwrapped it.Mar 5, 2015

What is a Mercator projection quizlet?

Mercator projection. A true conformal cylindrical map projection, 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. interrupted projection.

What's the best map projection?

AuthaGraph. This is hands-down the most accurate map projection in existence. In fact, AuthaGraph World Map is so proportionally perfect, it magically folds it into a three-dimensional globe. Japanese architect Hajime Narukawa invented this projection in 1999 by equally dividing a spherical surface into 96 triangles.Apr 25, 2017

What are the advantages of the Mercator projection?

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. Who Uses it? Sailors use a Mercator map to navigate.

What are the 3 advantages of the Mercator 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 distortion in map projection?

Map projections Main article: Map projection. In cartography, a distortion is the misrepresentation of the area or shape of a feature. There are no map projections that can maintain a perfect scale throughout the entire projection because they are taking a sphereoid and forcing it onto a flat surface.Oct 2, 2017

Why is the Mercator map distorted?

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.Nov 16, 2018

Coastal navigation - Mercator chart: 2 nautical charts

Like the Mercator projection use the vertical scale to measure distances. Gnomeric projection: Used for vast areas. Great circles appear as straight lines on the chart. Great circle navigation: The shortest course on earth between two positions is a great circle; for circumnavigating and ocean crossings.

13 Major Pros and Cons of Mercator Projection – ConnectUS

1. It is easier to plot courses on a Mercator projection. The Mercator projection makes it easier to navigate over long distances on our planet because of two properties: straight rhumb lines and conformality.

Projections and Coordinate Systems - UW Courses Web Server

Mercator projections, in which different areas of the earth fall into different 6-degree zones. Within each zone, a local coordinate system is defined, in which the X-origin is located 500,000 m west of the central meridian, and the Y-origin is the south pole or the equator, …

Mercator Projection: Advantages, Disadvantages and ..

Mainly, this projection is useful for tracing routes with a steady course in a straight line. In addition to creating a projection, Mercator published a geometric formula that …

What is difference between Mercator projection and ..

On a mercator projection chart, lines of latitude are parallel as are lines of longitude. On gnomonic projection charts, meridians converge and lines of latitude are curved. A rhumb line course of 040° crosses each meridian (lines of longitude) at the same angle. Great circle routes are straight lines and rhumb lines are curved.

Are online courses worth it?

Cost is another benefit, as most online courses are much cheaper than a traditional classroom program. Tuition is usually lower and there are practically no travel costs involved. That said, online education is only worth your time if you are earning accredited online degrees from accredited colleges.

Are online classes better?

Students participating in online classes do the same or better than those in the traditional classroom setup. ... And other studies show that students taking courses online score better on standardized tests.

Why is the Mercator projection used in navigation?

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.

How accurate is the Mercator projection?

Therefore, by construction, the Mercator projection is perfectly accurate, k = 1 , along the equator and nowhere else. At a latitude of ±25° the value of sec φ is about 1.1 and therefore the projection may be deemed accurate to within 10% in a strip of width 50° centred on the equator. Narrower strips are better: sec 8° = 1.01, so a strip of width 16° (centred on the equator) is accurate to within 1% or 1 part in 100. Similarly sec 2.56° = 1.001, so a strip of width 5.12° (centred on the equator) is accurate to within 0.1% or 1 part in 1,000. Therefore, the Mercator projection is adequate for mapping countries close to the equator.

Why use a mercator?

The Mercator projection was designed for use in marine navigation because of its unique property of representing any course of constant bearing as a straight segment. Such a course, known as a rhumb (or, mathematically, a loxodrome) is preferred in marine navigation because ships can sail in a constant compass direction, reducing the difficult, error-prone course corrections that otherwise would be needed frequently when sailing a different course. For distances small compared to the radius of the Earth, the difference between the rhumb and the technically shortest course, a great circle segment, is negligible, and even for longer distances, the simplicity of the constant bearing makes it attractive. As observed by Mercator, on such a course, the ship would not arrive by the shortest route, but it will surely arrive. Sailing a rhumb meant that all that the sailors had to do was keep a constant course as long as they knew where they were when they started, where they intended to be when they finished, and had a map in Mercator projection that correctly showed those two coordinates.

What is the choice of the function y () for the Mercator projection?

The choice of the function y ( φ) for the Mercator projection is determined by the demand that the projection be conformal, a condition which can be defined in two equivalent ways:

Why is a marine chart based on a mercator?

Practically every marine chart in print is based on the Mercator projection due to its uniquely favorable properties for navigation . It is also commonly used by street map services hosted on the Internet, due to its uniquely favorable properties for local-area maps computed on demand. Mercator projections were also important in the mathematical development of plate tectonics in the 1960s.

When the Earth is modelled by a spheroid ( ellipsoid of revolution

When the Earth is modelled by a spheroid ( ellipsoid of revolution) the Mercator projection must be modified if it is to remain conformal. The transformation equations and scale factor for the non-secant version are

Which projection was used to show relative areas?

Therefore, Mercator himself used the equal-area sinusoidal projection to show relative areas. However, despite such distortions, the Mercator projection was, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, perhaps the most common projection used in world maps, despite being much criticized for this use.

Who created the Mercator projection?

For sailors though the Mercator Projection is the best way to see the world on a chart. In 1569 the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator published a map for sailors that enabled them to plot a course in straight lines on a chart, a breakthrough for marine travel. Until then, maps were largely drawn for people as guides ...

What is a Breton Plotter?

The Breton Plotter has a compass rose and different lines that can be used for navigation on a chart. At its simplest it is a pair of parallel lines so you can slide it around the chart as you do your calculations.

Why is Europe so similar to Africa?

This is because the higher latitudes are ‘stretched’ to flatten them out owing to the longitude lines now being straight and not curved.

What are the lines on the Earth's surface called?

These lines are known by mariners as latitude lines or parallels. Latitude starts at the equator at 0° (0 degrees) and is measured north or south to the corresponding pole. As you will see, each pole is 90° away ...

What is the magnetic north?

Magnetic North is the top of a vast magnetic field that runs from hundreds of miles above the South Pole to hundreds of miles above the North Pole. It protects the Earth from cosmic rays that could otherwise destroy our electronics and give us skin cancers.

Where is longitude measured?

Longitude is similar to latitude but it is measured vertically (east - west) from the meridian line that runs through Greenwich, England. The longitude range runs from 0° - 180°. The meridian that is on the opposite side of the globe from Greenwich is known as the International Date Line and is 180° from Greenwich.

Does Lefkada sit above the North Pole?

It doesn’t rigidly sit above the geographical North Pole. It shifts about a little every year (and according to where you are in the world - Lefkada in Greece will be different to Southampton in England on the same day), and every few thousand years actually swaps ends with the South Pole!

Why is the Mercator projection only possible?

This is only possible because the projection is conformal and (to a lesser extent) because the north is always at the top of the screen. As mentioned above, only the Mercator projection meets these two criteria, which is why it has been chosen, at the cost of a distorted zoomed-out view of the world 1.

Can you use a better looking projection for zoomed out view?

In fact, it might be possible to use a better-looking projection for the zoomed-out view and progressively switch to Mercator as the user zooms in. However, the map would rotate and get distorted (or straightened) every time the user zooms in or out. ↩

Why do latitude and longitude lines on a mercator map have to be set farther apart?

In order to maintain the straight longitude lines on a Mercator Map, the lines of latitude are set farther apart as you move away from the Equator. This stretches places like Greenland and Alaska, distorting their size relationship to places that straddle the Equator, such as Africa.

What did Mercator do to help sailors?

As such, he drew up a map designed to help sailors plot their course with the use of special “ rhumb ” lines representing the latitudes and longitudes of the world.

Who was the first Flemish cartographer?

Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator drew up this projection in 1569, when the European “Age of Discovery” was well under way. Mercator lived in the Holy Roman Empire, which had recently been ruled by Charles the Fifth, who was also the King of Spain at the time and all of Spain’s possessions in South America.

Does Google Maps use a mercator?

A lot has been said and written about this distortion, and the fact that Google Maps uses a Mercator Projection (which makes it easier to seamlessly zoom to local areas) has been criticized by lovers of accurate maps. If you want to see just how far off the Mercator projection is, check it out.

Overview

History

Properties

Distortion of sizes

Uses

Mathematics

See also

Bibliography