A.

ROBINSON PROJECTION

Robinson projection of the world

The Robinson projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation

The Robinson projection is a map projection of a world map which shows the entire
world at once. It was specifically created in an attempt to find a good compromise
to the problem of readily showing the whole globe as a flat image.
The Robinson projection was devised by Arthur H. Robinson in 1963 in response to
an appeal from the Rand McNally company, which has used the projection in
general purpose world maps since that time. Robinson published details of the
projection's construction in 1974. The National Geographic Society (NGS) began
using the Robinson projection for general purpose world maps in 1988, replacing
the Van der Grinten projection. In 1998 NGS abandoned the Robinson projection in

favor of the Winkel tripel projection for that use as it "reduces the distortion of land
masses as they near the poles".
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
The Robinson projection is neither equal-area nor conformal, abandoning both for a
compromise. The creator felt this produced a better overall view than could be
achieved by adhering to either. The meridians curve gently, avoiding extremes, but
thereby stretch the poles into long lines instead of leaving them as points.
Hence, distortion close to the poles is severe, but quickly declines to moderate
levels moving away from them. The straight parallels imply severe angular
distortion at the high latitudes toward the outer edges of the map, a fault inherent
in any pseudocylindrical projection. However, at the time it was developed, the
projection effectively met Rand McNally's goal to produce appealing depictions of
the entire world.
I decided to go about it backwards. I started with a kind of artistic approach. I
visualized the best-looking shapes and sizes. I worked with the variables until it got
to the point where, if I changed one of them, it didn't get any better. Then I figured
out the mathematical formula to produce that effect. Most mapmakers start with
the mathematics.
1988 NY Times
FORMULATION
The projection is defined by the table:
Latitude

PLEN

PDFE

00

1.0000

0.0000

05

0.9986

0.0620

10

0.9954

0.1240

15

0.9900

0.1860

20

0.9822

0.2480

25

0.9730

0.3100

30

0.9600

0.3720

35

0.9427

0.4340

40

0.9216

0.4958

45

0.8962

0.5571

50

0.8679

0.6176

55

0.8350

0.6769

60

0.7986

0.7346

65

0.7597

0.7903

70

0.7186

0.8435

75

0.6732

0.8936

80

0.6213

0.9394

85

0.5722

0.9761

90

0.5322

1.0000

The table is indexed by latitude at 5 degree intervals; intermediate values are

calculated using interpolation. Robinson did not specify any particular interpolation
method, but it is reported that he used Aitken
interpolation himself. The PLEN column is the length of the parallel of latitude, and
the PDFE column is multiplied by 0.5072 to obtain the distance of that parallel from
the equator. Meridians of longitude are equally spaced on each parallel of latitude.

B.)

MERCATOR PROJECTION

The Mercator projection is a map projection that was widely used for navigation since loxodromes are straight
lines (although great circles are curved). The following equations place the x-axis of the projection on the equator
and the y-axisat longitude , where is the longitude and is the latitude.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
The inverse formulas are
(7)

(8)
(9)
(10)
where

is the Gudermannian.

An oblique form of the Mercator projection is illustrated above. It has equations

(11)
(12)
(13)
where

(14)
(15)
(16)
The inverse formulas are

(17)

(18)

There is also a transverse form of the Mercator projection, illustrated above (Deetz and Adams 1934,
Snyder 1987). It is given by the equations

(19)
(20)
(21)
(22)
(23)

where
(24)
(25)
Finally, the "universal transverse Mercator projection" is a map projection which maps the sphere into 60 zones
of
each, with each zone mapped by a transverse Mercator projection with central meridian in the center of the
zone. The zones extend from
S to
N (Dana).

C.) POLAR PROJECTION

The polar projection is an azimuthal projection drawn to show Arctic and
Antarctic areas. It is based on a plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis in contact
with the North or South Pole. It is limited to 10 or 15 degrees from the poles.

AZIMUTHAL EQUIDISTANT PROJECTION

Polar azimuthal equidistant projection

Emblem of the United Nations containing an approximate polar azimuthal

equidistant projection. Compare the relative sizes of Australia and north Africa with
those in the previous render.
The azimuthal equidistant projection is an azimuthal map projection. It has the
useful properties that all points on the map are at proportionately correct distances
from the center point, and that all points on the map are at the correct azimuth
(direction) from the center point. A useful application for this type of projection is
a polar projection which shows all meridians (lines of longitude) as straight, with
distances from the pole represented correctly. The flag of the United
Nations contains an example of a polar azimuthal equidistant projection.
This projection is used by the USGS in the National Atlas of the United States of
America, and for large-scale mapping of Micronesia. It is useful for showing airline
distances from center point of projection and for seismic and radio work.
In the case of radio, this projection allows for directional antenna aiming, especially
in the case of HFcommunications. An operator can point the antenna, usually by
an electric rotator, simply locating the target in the map and rotating the antenna to
the angle indicated by the map. The map should be centered as nearly as possible
to the actual antenna location.
Distances and directions to all places are true only from the center point of
projection. Distances are correct between points along straight lines through the
center. All other distances are incorrect. Distortion of areas and shapes increases
with distance from the center point.
Some types of wide-angle camera lenses, known as "fisheye lenses" produce an
azimuthal equidistant projection of the photographed scene onto the photographic
medium. These lenses allow a much wider field of view than perspective lenses,
which are limited to significantly less than 180 degrees.

HISTORY
While it may have been used by ancient Egyptians for star maps in some holy
books, the earliest text describing the azimuthal equidistant projection is an 11thcentury work by al-Biruni
The projection appears in many Renaissance maps, and Gerardus Mercator used it
for an inset of the north polar regions in sheet 13 and legend 6 of his wellknown 1569 map. In France and Russia this projection is named "Postel projection"
after Guillaume Postel, who used it for a map in 1581.[3]Many modern star
chart planispheres use the polar azimuthal equidistant projection.

Comparison of the Azimuthal equidistant projection and some azimuthal projections

centered on 90 N at the same scale, ordered by projection altitude in Earth radii.

MATHEMATICAL DEFINITION
A point on the globe is chosen to be special in the sense that mapped distances
and azimuths from that point to any other point will be correct. That point, (1, 0),
will project to the center of a circular projection, with referring to latitude
and referring to longitude. All points along a given azimuth will project along a
straight line from the center, and the angle that line subtends from the vertical is
the azimuth angle. The distance from the center point to another projected point is
given as . By this description, then, the point on the globe specified by (,) will be
projected to Cartesian coordinates:

D.) GOODE HOMOLOSINE PROJECTION

Goode homolosine projection of the world.

Tissot indicatrix on Goode homolosine projection, 15 graticule.

The Goode homolosine projection (or interrupted Goode homolosine projection) is

apseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps. Normally it is

presented with multiple interruptions. Its equal-area property makes it useful for presenting spatial
distribution of phenomena.
The projection was developed in 1923 by John Paul Goode to provide an alternative to
the Mercatorprojection for portraying global areal relationships. Goode offered variations of the
interruption scheme for emphasizing the worlds land masses and the worlds oceans. Some variants
include extensions that repeat regions in two different lobes of the interrupted map in order to show
Greenland or eastern Russia undivided. The homolosine evolved from Goodes 1916 experiments in
interrupting the Mollweide projection.
Because the Mollweide is sometimes called the "homolographic projection", Goode fused the two
names "homolographic" and "sinusoidal" to create the name homolosine. Common in the 1960s,
the Goode homolosine projection is often called an "orange-peel map" because of its resemblance
to the flattened rind of a hand-peeled orange. In its most common form, the map interrupts the North
Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the entire east/west meridian of
the map.
Up to latitudes 414411.8N/S, the map is projected according to the Sinusoidal projections
transformation. The higher latitudes are the top sections of a Mollweide projection, grafted to the
Sinusoidal midsection where the scale of the two projections matches. This grafting results in a kink
in the meridians along the parallel of the graft. The projections equal-area property follows from the
fact that its source projections are themselves both equal-area.

E.) GALLPETERS PROJECTION

The GallPeters projection of the world map

The GallPeters projection, named after James Gall and Arno Peters, is one specialization of
a configurable equal-area map projection known as the equal-area cylindric or cylindrical equalarea projection. It achieved considerable notoriety in the late 20th century as the centerpiece of
a controversy about the political implications of map design.
Maps based on the projection are promoted by UNESCO, and they are also widely used by

British schools.

Description
Formula

where is the longitude from the central meridian in degrees, is the latitude, and R is the
radius of the globe used as the model of the earth for projection. For longitude given in radians,
remove the /180 factors.

Simplified formula
Stripping out unit conversion and uniform scaling, the formulae may be written:

where is the longitude from the central meridian (in radians), is the latitude, and R is
the radius of the globe used as the model of the earth for projection. Hence the sphere is
mapped onto the vertical cylinder, and the cylinder is stretched to double its length. The
stretch factor, 2 in this case, is what distinguishes the variations of cylindric equal-area
projection.

Discussion

The GallPeters cylindrical equal-area projection with Tissot's indicatrices of deformation

The various specializations of the cylindric equal-area projection differ only in the ratio of the
vertical to horizontal axis. This ratio determines the standard parallel of the projection, which is
the parallel at which there is no distortion and along which distances match the stated scale.
There are always two standard parallels on the cylindric equal-area projection, each at the same
distance north and south of the equator. The standard parallels of the GallPeters are 45 N and
45 S. Several other specializations of the equal-area cylindric have been described, promoted,
or otherwise named.

Named specializations of the cylindric equalarea projection

Specialization

Standard parallels N/S

Lambert cylindric equalarea

Equator

Behrmann cylindric equalarea

30

Smyth equalsurface (= Craster

rectangular)

3704

Trystan Edwards

3724

HoboDyer

3730

GallPeters (= Gall
orthographic = Peters)

45

Balthasart

50

Origins and naming

The GallPeters projection was first described in 1855 by clergyman James Gall, who presented
it along with two other projections at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science (the BA). He gave it the name "orthographic" (no relation to
the Orthographic projection) and formally published his work in 1885 in the Scottish
Geographical Magazine.
The name "GallPeters projection" seems to have been used first by Arthur H. Robinson in a
pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986.Before 1973 it had been
known, when referred to at all, as the "Gall orthographic" or "Gall's orthographic." Most Peters
supporters refer to it only as the "Peters projection." During the years of controversy the
cartographic literature tended to mention both attributions, settling on one or the other for the
purposes of the article. In recent years "GallPeters" seems to dominate.

Peters World Map

The right and left borders of the Peters map are in the Bering Strait,
so all of Russia is displayed on the right side.
Greenwich great circle
Bering Strait great circle (traversing Florence in Italy, see Florence meridian)
Comparison of the GallPeters projection and some cylindrical equal-area map projections with Tissot
indicatrix, standard parallels and aspect ratio

In 1967 Arno Peters, a German filmmaker, devised a map projection identical to Gall's
orthographic projection and presented it in 1973 as a "new invention." He promoted it as a

superior alternative to the Mercator projection, which was suited to navigation but also used
commonly in world maps. The Mercator projection increasingly inflates the sizes of regions
according to their distance from the equator. This inflation results, for example, in a
representation of Greenland that is larger than Africa, which has a geographic area 14 times
greater than Greenland's. Since much of the technologically underdeveloped world lies near the
equator, these countries appear smaller on a Mercator and therefore, according to Peters, seem
less significant. On Peters's projection, by contrast, areas of equal size on the globe are also
equally sized on the map. By using his "new" projection, poorer, less powerful nations could be
restored to their rightful proportions. This reasoning has been picked up by many educational
and religious bodies, leading to adoption of the GallPeters projection among some socially
concerned groups, including Oxfam, National Council of Churches,[8] New Internationalist
magazine, and the Mennonite Central Committee. However, Peters's choice of 45 N/S for the
standard parallels means that the regions displayed with highest accuracy include Europe and
the US, and not the tropics.
Peters's original description of the projection for his map contained a geometric error that, taken
literally, implies standard parallels of 4602 N/S. However the text accompanying the description
made it clear that he had intended the standard parallels to be 45 N/S, making his projection
identical to Gall's orthographic. In any case, the difference is negligible in a world map.
At first, the cartographic community largely ignored Peters's foray into cartography. The
preceding century had already witnessed many campaigns for new projections with little visible
result. Just twenty years earlier, for example, Trystan Edwards described and promoted his own
eponymous projection, disparaging the Mercator, and recommending his projection
as the solution. Peters's projection differed from Edwards's only in height-to-width ratio. More
problematic, Peters's projection was identical to one that was already over a century old, though
he probably did not realize it. That projectionGall's orthographicpassed unnoticed when it
was announced in 1855.
Beyond the lack of novelty in the projection itself, the claims Peters made about the projection
were also familiar to cartographers. Just as in the case of Peters, earlier projections generally
were promoted as alternatives to the Mercator. Inappropriate use of the Mercator projection in
world maps and the size disparities figuring prominently in Peters's arguments against the
Mercator projection had been remarked upon for centuries and quite commonly in the 20th
century. As early as 1943, Stewart notes this phenomenon and compares the quest for the
perfect projection to "squaring the circle or making pi come out even" because the mathematics
that governs map projections just does not permit development of a map projection that is
objectively significantly better than the hundreds already devised. Even Peters's politicized
interpretation of the common use of Mercator was nothing new, with Kelloway's 1946 text
mentioning a similar controversy.
Cartographers had long despaired over publishers' inapt use of the Mercator. A 1943 New York
Timeseditorial stated that "...The time has come to discard [the Mercator] for something that
represents the continents and directions less deceptively... Although its usage... has
diminished... it is still highly popular as a wall map apparently in part because, as a rectangular
map, it fills a rectangular wall space with more map, and clearly because its familiarity breeds
more popularity."] Because of the lack of novelty both in the projection Peters devised and in the
rhetoric surrounding its promotion, the cartographic community had no reason to think Peters

would succeed any more than Edwards or his predecessors had.

Peters, however, launched his campaign in a different world from that of Edwards. He
announced his map at a time when themes of social justice resonated strongly in academia and
politics. Suggesting cartographic imperialism, Peters found ready audiences. The campaign was
bolstered by the claim that the Peters projection was the only "area-correct" map. Other claims
included "absolute angle conformality," "no extreme distortions of form," and "totally distancefactual.
All of those claims were erroneous. Some of the oldest projections are equal-area
(the sinusoidal projection is also known as the "Mercator equal-area projection"), and hundreds
have been described, refuting any implication that Peters's map is special in that regard. In any
case, Mercator was not the pervasive projection Peters made it out to be: a wide variety of
projections has always been used in world maps. Peters's chosen projection suffers extreme
distortion in the polar regions, as any cylindrical projection must, and its distortion along the
equator is considerable. Several scholars have remarked on the irony of the projection's
undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense
of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations. The claim of
distance fidelity is particularly problematic: Peters's map lacks distance fidelity everywhere
except along the 45th parallels north and south, and then only in the direction of those parallels.
No world projection is good at preserving distances everywhere; Peters's and all other cylindric
projections are especially bad in that regard because east-west distances inevitably balloon
toward the poles.
The cartographic community met Peters's 1973 press conference with amusement and mild
exasperation, but little activity beyond a few articles commenting on the technical aspects of
Peters's claims. In the ensuing years, however, it became clear that Peters and his map were no
flash in the pan. By 1980 many cartographers had turned overtly hostile to his claims. In
particular, Peters writes in The New Cartography,
Philosophers, astronomers, historians, popes and mathematicians have all drawn global maps
long before cartographers as such existed. Cartographers appeared in the "Age of Discovery",
which developed into the Age of European Conquest and Exploitation and took over the task of
making maps.
By the authority of their profession they have hindered its development. Since Mercator
produced his global map over four hundred years ago for the age of Europeans world
domination, cartographers have clung to it despite its having been long outdated by events.
They have sought to render it topical by cosmetic corrections.
...The European world concept, as the last expression of a subjective global view of primitive
peoples, must give way to an objective global concept.
The cartographic profession is, by its retention of old precepts based on the Eurocentric global
concept, incapable of developing this egalitarian world map which alone can demonstrate the
parity of all peoples of the earth.
This attack galled the cartographic community. Their most emphatic refutation of Peterss

assertions was the long list of cartographers who, over the preceding century, had formally
expressed frustration at publishers overuse of the Mercator, as noted above. Many of those
cartographers had already developed projections they explicitly promoted as alternatives to the
Mercator, including the most influential American cartographers of the twentieth century: John
Paul Goode (Goode homolosine projection), Erwin Raisz (Armadillo projection), and Arthur H.
Robinson (Robinson projection). Hence the cartographic community viewed Peterss narrative
as ahistorical and mean-spirited.
The two camps never made any real attempts toward reconciliation. The Peters camp largely
ignored the protests of the cartographers. Peters maintained there should be "one map for one
world"hisand did not acknowledge the prior art of Gall until the controversy had largely run
its course, late in his life. While Peters likely reinvented the projection independently, his
unscholarly conduct and refusal to engage the cartographic community undoubtedly contributed
to the polarization and impasse.
Frustrated by some very visible successes and mounting publicity stirred up by the industry that
had sprung up around the Peters map, the cartographic community began to plan more
coordinated efforts to restore balance, as they saw it. The 1980s saw a flurry of literature
directed against the Peters phenomenon. Though Peters's map was not singled out, the
controversy motivated the American Cartographic Association (now Cartography and
Geographic Information Society) to produce a series of booklets (including Which Map Is Bes)
designed to educate the public about map projections and distortion in maps. In 1989 and 1990,
after some internal debate, seven North American geographic organizations adopted the
following resolution, which rejected all rectangular world maps, a category that includes both the
Mercator and the GallPeters projections:
WHEREAS, the earth is round with a coordinate system composed entirely of circles, and
WHEREAS, flat world maps are more useful than globe maps, but flattening the globe surface
necessarily greatly changes the appearance of Earth's features and coordinate systems, and
WHEREAS, world maps have a powerful and lasting effect on people's impressions of the
shapes and sizes of lands and seas, their arrangement, and the nature of the coordinate
system, and
WHEREAS, frequently seeing a greatly distorted map tends to make it "look right,"
THEREFORE, we strongly urge book and map publishers, the media and government agencies
to cease using rectangular world maps for general purposes or artistic displays. Such maps
promote serious, erroneous conceptions by severely distorting large sections of the world, by
showing the round Earth as having straight edges and sharp corners, by representing most
distances and direct routes incorrectly, and by portraying the circular coordinate system as a
squared grid. The most widely displayed rectangular world map is the Mercator (in fact a
navigational diagram devised for nautical charts), but other rectangular world maps proposed as
replacements for the Mercator also display a greatly distorted image of the spherical Earth.
One map society, the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS), declined to

endorse the 1989 resolution, although no reasons were given.

The geographic and cartographic communities did not unanimously disparage the Peters World
Map. Some cartographers, including J. Brian Harley, have credited the Peters phenomenon with
demonstrating the social implications of map projections, at the very least. Crampton sees the
condemnation from the cartographic community as reactionary and perhaps demonstrative of
immaturity in the profession, given that all maps are political. Denis Wood sees the map as one
of many useful tools. Lastly, Terry Hardaker of Oxford Cartographers Limited, sympathetic to
Peters's mission, became the map's official cartographer when Peters, overwhelmed by the
technical aspects of cartography, sought to pass on those responsibilities.

In popular culture
A GallPeters projection as well as a south-up Peters map were featured in the American
television show The West Wing (season 2, episode 16), in which the (fictitious) Organization of
Cartographers for Social Equality is given access to the White House Press Secretary due to
"Big Block of Cheese Day".[37] Dr. John Fallow (actor John Billingsley) explains why the President
of the United States should champion the use of this map in schools, because it correctly
represents the size of the countries and therefore gives due prominence to countries in less
technologically developed parts of the world that are otherwise underestimated.
The map is a favorite of military geostrategist Thomas Barnett, who has included it in his
presentations of The Brief, which have aired on C-SPAN in the United States.