Choosing a World Map: Attributes, Distortions, Classes, Aspects

Abstract

For more than 2000 years mapmakers have been inventing ways to display the entire Earth on a flat surface—papyrus, vellum, metal, paper, or whatever—and now on a TV or computer monitor. The process requires a systematic conversion called a map projection. There is no single solution, and hundreds have been devised. The Earth is round like a ball, and no matter how one flattens the rounded surface the reality of the spherical surface will be variously deformed to a noticeable degree.