Map projection


In cartography, a map projection is a way to flatten a globe's surface into a plane in order to make a map. This requires a systematic transformation of the latitudes and longitudes of locations from the surface of the globe into locations on a plane.
All projections of a sphere on a plane necessarily distort the surface in some way and to some extent. Depending on the purpose of the map, some distortions are acceptable and others are not; therefore, different map projections exist in order to preserve some properties of the sphere-like body at the expense of other properties. Every distinct map projection distorts in a distinct way, by definition. The study of map projections is the characterization of these distortions. There is no limit to the number of possible map projections.
Projections are a subject of several pure mathematical fields, including differential geometry, projective geometry, and manifolds. However, "map projection" refers specifically to a cartographic projection.
Despite the name's literal meaning, projection is not limited to perspective projections, such as those resulting from casting a shadow on a screen, or the rectilinear image produced by a pinhole camera on a flat film plate. Rather, any mathematical function that transforms coordinates from the curved surface distinctly and smoothly to the plane is a projection. Few projections in practical use are perspective.
Most of this article assumes that the surface to be mapped is that of a sphere. The Earth and other large celestial bodies are generally better modeled as oblate spheroids, whereas small objects such as asteroids often have irregular shapes. The surfaces of planetary bodies can be mapped even if they are too irregular to be modeled well with a sphere or ellipsoid. Therefore, more generally, a map projection is any method of flattening a continuous curved surface onto a plane.
A model globe does not distort surface relationships the way maps do, but maps can be more useful in many situations: they are more compact and easier to store; they readily accommodate an enormous range of scales; they are viewed easily on computer displays; they can be measured to find properties of the region being mapped; they can show larger portions of the Earth's surface at once; and they are cheaper to produce and transport. These useful traits of maps motivate the development of map projections.

Metric properties of maps

Many properties can be measured on the Earth's surface independent of its geography:
Map projections can be constructed to preserve some of these properties at the expense of others. Because the curved Earth's surface is not isometric to a plane, preservation of shapes inevitably leads to a variable scale and, consequently, non-proportional presentation of areas. Vice versa, an area-preserving projection can not be conformal, resulting in shapes and bearings distorted in most places of the map. Each projection preserves, compromises, or approximates basic metric properties in different ways. The purpose of the map determines which projection should form the base for the map. Because many purposes exist for maps, a diversity of projections have been created to suit those purposes.
Another consideration in the configuration of a projection is its compatibility with data sets to be used on the map. Data sets are geographic information; their collection depends on the chosen datum of the Earth. Different datums assign slightly different coordinates to the same location, so in large scale maps, such as those from national mapping systems, it is important to match the datum to the projection. The slight differences in coordinate assignation between different datums is not a concern for world maps or other vast territories, where such differences get shrunk to imperceptibility.

Distortion

's Theorema Egregium proved that a sphere's surface cannot be represented on a plane without distortion. The same applies to other reference surfaces used as models for the Earth, such as oblate spheroids, ellipsoids and geoids. Since any map projection is a representation of one of those surfaces on a plane, all map projections distort.
The classical way of showing the distortion inherent in a projection is to use Tissot's indicatrix. For a given point, using the scale factor h along the meridian, the scale factor k along the parallel, and the angle θ′ between them, Nicolas Tissot described how to construct an ellipse that characterizes the amount and orientation of the components of distortion. By spacing the ellipses regularly along the meridians and parallels, the network of indicatrices shows how distortion varies across the map.

Other distortion metrics

Many other ways have been described for characterizing distortion in projections. Like Tissot's indicatrix, the Goldberg-Gott indicatrix is based on infinitesimals, and depicts flexion and skewness distortions.
Rather than the original infinitesimal circle as in Tissot's indicatrix, some visual methods project finite shapes that span a part of the map.
For example, a small circle of fixed radius. Sometimes spherical triangles are used.
In the first half of the 20th century, projecting a human head onto different projections was common to show how distortion varies across one projection as compared to another.
In dynamic media, shapes of familiar coastlines and boundaries can be dragged across an interactive map to show how the projection distorts sizes and shapes according to position on the map.
Another way to visualize local distortion is through grayscale or color gradations whose shade represents the magnitude of the angular deformation or areal inflation. Sometimes both are shown simultaneously by blending two colors to create a bivariate map.
The problem of characterizing distortion globally across areas instead of at just a single point is that it necessarily involves choosing priorities to reach a compromise. Some schemes use distance distortion as a proxy for the combination of angular deformation and areal inflation; such methods arbitrarily choose what paths to measure and how to weight them in order to yield a single result. Many have been described.

Design and construction

The creation of a map projection involves two steps:
  1. Selection of a model for the shape of the Earth or planetary body. Because the Earth's actual shape is irregular, information is lost in this step.
  2. Transformation of geographic coordinates to Cartesian or polar plane coordinates. In large-scale maps, Cartesian coordinates normally have a simple relation to eastings and northings defined as a grid superimposed on the projection. In small-scale maps, eastings and northings are not meaningful, and grids are not superimposed.
Some of the simplest map projections are literal projections, as obtained by placing
a light source at some definite point relative to the globe and projecting its features onto a specified surface. Although most projections are not defined in this way, picturing the light source-globe model can be helpful in understanding the basic concept of a map projection.

Choosing a projection surface

A surface that can be unfolded or unrolled into a plane or sheet without stretching, tearing or shrinking is called a developable surface. The cylinder, cone and the plane are all developable surfaces. The sphere and ellipsoid do not have developable surfaces, so any projection of them onto a plane will have to distort the image.
One way of describing a projection is first to project from the Earth's surface to a developable surface such as a cylinder or cone, and then to unroll the surface into a plane. While the first step inevitably distorts some properties of the globe, the developable surface can then be unfolded without further distortion.

Aspect of the projection

Once a choice is made between projecting onto a cylinder, cone, or plane, the aspect of the shape must be specified. The aspect describes how the developable surface is placed relative to the globe: it may be normal, transverse or oblique.

Notable lines

The developable surface may also be either tangent or secant to the sphere or ellipsoid. Tangent means the surface touches but does not slice through the globe; secant means the surface does slice through the globe. Moving the developable surface away from contact with the globe never preserves or optimizes metric properties, so that possibility is not discussed further here.
Tangent and secant lines are represented undistorted. If these lines are a parallel of latitude, as in conical projections, it is called a standard parallel. The central meridian is the meridian to which the globe is rotated before projecting. The central meridian and a parallel of origin are often used to define the origin of the map projection.

Scale

A globe is the only way to represent the Earth with constant scale throughout the entire map in all directions. A map cannot achieve that property for any area, no matter how small. It can, however, achieve constant scale along specific lines.
Some possible properties are:
Projection construction is also affected by how the shape of the Earth or planetary body is approximated. In the following section on projection categories, the earth is taken as a sphere in order to simplify the discussion. However, the Earth's actual shape is closer to an oblate ellipsoid. Whether spherical or ellipsoidal, the principles discussed hold without loss of generality.
Selecting a model for a shape of the Earth involves choosing between the advantages and disadvantages of a sphere versus an ellipsoid. Spherical models are useful for small-scale maps such as world atlases and globes, since the error at that scale is not usually noticeable or important enough to justify using the more complicated ellipsoid. The ellipsoidal model is commonly used to construct topographic maps and for other large- and medium-scale maps that need to accurately depict the land surface. Auxiliary latitudes are often employed in projecting the ellipsoid.
A third model is the geoid, a more complex and accurate representation of Earth's shape coincident with what mean sea level would be if there were no winds, tides, or land. Compared to the best fitting ellipsoid, a geoidal model would change the characterization of important properties such as distance, conformality and equivalence. Therefore, in geoidal projections that preserve such properties, the mapped graticule would deviate from a mapped ellipsoid's graticule. Normally the geoid is not used as an Earth model for projections, however, because Earth's shape is very regular, with the undulation of the geoid amounting to less than 100 m from the ellipsoidal model out of the 6.3 million m Earth radius. For irregular planetary bodies such as asteroids, however, sometimes models analogous to the geoid are used to project maps from. Other regular solids are sometimes used as generalizations for smaller bodies' geoidal equivalent. For example, Io is better modeled by triaxial ellipsoid or prolated spheroid with small eccentricities. Haumea's shape is a Jacobi ellipsoid, with its major axis twice as long as its minor and with its middle axis one and half times as long as its minor.

Classification

A fundamental projection classification is based on the type of projection surface onto which the globe is conceptually projected. The projections are described in terms of placing a gigantic surface in contact with the Earth, followed by an implied scaling operation. These surfaces are cylindrical, conic, and plane. Many mathematical projections, however, do not neatly fit into any of these three conceptual projection methods. Hence other peer categories have been described in the literature, such as pseudoconic, pseudocylindrical, pseudoazimuthal, retroazimuthal, and polyconic.
Another way to classify projections is according to properties of the model they preserve. Some of the more common categories are:
Because the sphere is not a developable surface, it is impossible to construct a map projection that is both equal-area and conformal.

Projections by surface

The three developable surfaces provide useful models for understanding, describing, and developing map projections. However, these models are limited in two fundamental ways. For one thing, most world projections in use do not fall into any of those categories. For another thing, even most projections that do fall into those categories are not naturally attainable through physical projection. As L.P. Lee notes,
Lee's objection refers to the way the terms cylindrical, conic, and planar have been abstracted in the field of map projections. If maps were projected as in light shining through a globe onto a developable surface, then the spacing of parallels would follow a very limited set of possibilities. Such a cylindrical projection is one which:
  1. Is rectangular;
  2. Has straight vertical meridians, spaced evenly;
  3. Has straight parallels symmetrically placed about the equator;
  4. Has parallels constrained to where they fall when light shines through the globe onto the cylinder, with the light source someplace along the line formed by the intersection of the prime meridian with the equator, and the center of the sphere.
Where the light source emanates along the line described in this last constraint is what yields the differences between the various "natural" cylindrical projections. But the term cylindrical as used in the field of map projections relaxes the last constraint entirely. Instead the parallels can be placed according to any algorithm the designer has decided suits the needs of the map. The famous Mercator projection is one in which the placement of parallels does not arise by projection; instead parallels are placed how they need to be in order to satisfy the property that a course of constant bearing is always plotted as a straight line.

Cylindrical

A normal cylindrical projection is any projection in which meridians are mapped to equally spaced vertical lines and circles of latitude are mapped to horizontal lines.
The mapping of meridians to vertical lines can be visualized by imagining a cylinder whose axis coincides with the Earth's axis of rotation. This cylinder is wrapped around the Earth, projected onto, and then unrolled.
By the geometry of their construction, cylindrical projections stretch distances east-west. The amount of stretch is the same at any chosen latitude on all cylindrical projections, and is given by the secant of the latitude as a multiple of the equator's scale. The various cylindrical projections are distinguished from each other solely by their north-south stretching :
In the first case, the east-west scale always equals the north-south scale. In the second case, the north-south scale exceeds the east-west scale everywhere away from the equator. Each remaining case has a pair of secant lines—a pair of identical latitudes of opposite sign at which the east-west scale matches the north-south-scale.
Normal cylindrical projections map the whole Earth as a finite rectangle, except in the first two cases, where the rectangle stretches infinitely tall while retaining constant width.

Pseudocylindrical

Pseudocylindrical projections represent the central meridian as a straight line segment. Other meridians are longer than the central meridian and bow outward, away from the central meridian. Pseudocylindrical projections map parallels as straight lines. Along parallels, each point from the surface is mapped at a distance from the central meridian that is proportional to its difference in longitude from the central meridian. Therefore, meridians are equally spaced along a given parallel. On a pseudocylindrical map, any point further from the equator than some other point has a higher latitude than the other point, preserving north-south relationships. This trait is useful when illustrating phenomena that depend on latitude, such as climate. Examples of pseudocylindrical projections include:
The HEALPix projection combines an equal-area cylindrical projection in equatorial regions with the Collignon projection in polar areas.

Conic

The term "conic projection" is used to refer to any projection in which meridians are mapped to equally spaced lines radiating out from the apex and circles of latitude are mapped to circular arcs centered on the apex.
When making a conic map, the map maker arbitrarily picks two standard parallels. Those standard parallels may be visualized as secant lines where the cone intersects the globe—or, if the map maker chooses the same parallel twice, as the tangent line where the cone is tangent to the globe. The resulting conic map has low distortion in scale, shape, and area near those standard parallels. Distances along the parallels to the north of both standard parallels or to the south of both standard parallels are stretched; distances along parallels between the standard parallels are compressed. When a single standard parallel is used, distances along all other parallels are stretched.
Conic projections that are commonly used are:
al projections have the property that directions from a central point are preserved and therefore great circles through the central point are represented by straight lines on the map. These projections also have radial symmetry in the scales and hence in the distortions: map distances from the central point are computed by a function r of the true distance d, independent of the angle; correspondingly, circles with the central point as center are mapped into circles which have as center the central point on the map.
The mapping of radial lines can be visualized by imagining a plane tangent to the Earth, with the central point as tangent point.
The radial scale is r′ and the transverse scale r/ where R is the radius of the Earth.
Some azimuthal projections are true perspective projections; that is, they can be constructed mechanically, projecting the surface of the Earth by extending lines from a point of perspective onto the plane:
Other azimuthal projections are not true perspective projections:

Conformal

, or orthomorphic, map projections preserve angles locally, implying that they map infinitesimal circles of constant size anywhere on the Earth to infinitesimal circles of varying sizes on the map. In contrast, mappings that are not conformal distort most such small circles into ellipses of distortion. An important consequence of conformality
is that relative angles at each point of the map are correct, and the local scale in every direction around any one point is constant. These are some conformal projections:
Equal-area maps preserve area measure, generally distorting shapes in order to do that. Equal-area maps are also called equivalent or authalic. These are some projections that preserve area:
If the length of the line segment connecting two projected points on the plane is proportional to the geodesic distance between the two unprojected points on the globe, then we say that distance has been preserved between those two points. An equidistant projection preserves distances from one or two special points to all other points. The special point or points may get stretched into a line or curve segment when projected. In that case, the point on the line or curve segment closest to the point being measured to must be used to measure the distance.
s are displayed as straight lines:
Direction to a fixed location B corresponds to the direction on the map from A to B:
Compromise projections give up the idea of perfectly preserving metric properties, seeking instead to strike a balance between distortions, or to simply make things look right. Most of these types of projections distort shape in the polar regions more than at the equator. These are some compromise projections:
The mathematics of projection do not permit any particular map projection to be best for everything. Something will always be distorted. Thus, many projections exist to serve the many uses of maps and their vast range of scales.
Modern national mapping systems typically employ a transverse Mercator or close variant for large-scale maps in order to preserve conformality and low variation in scale over small areas. For smaller-scale maps, such as those spanning continents or the entire world, many projections are in common use according to their fitness for the purpose, such as Winkel tripel, Robinson and Mollweide. Reference maps of the world often appear on compromise projections. Due to distortions inherent in any map of the world, the choice of projection becomes largely one of aesthetics.
Thematic maps normally require an equal area projection so that phenomena per unit area are shown in correct proportion.
However, representing area ratios correctly necessarily distorts shapes more than many maps that are not equal-area.
The Mercator projection, developed for navigational purposes, has often been used in world maps where other projections would have been more appropriate. This problem has long been recognized even outside professional circles. For example, a 1943 New York Times editorial states:
A controversy in the 1980s over the Peters map motivated the American Cartographic Association to produce a series of booklets 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 a resolution recommending against using any rectangular projection for reference maps of the world.

Citations