It's a problem that has plagued cartographers for centuries: How do you accurately represent a round world on a flat map? The most common world map used today, designed almost 450 years ago, is highly ...

World map with the British Empire highlighted in red, Mercator projection. Author: Colomb, J.C.R. Publisher: MacClure & Co. Date: 1886. Location: Great Britain. BY Ruben Pater In November 2014, the ...

<br>In 150 AD, the Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy wrote a textbook entitled the <i>Geography, </i>which earned him the title ‘The Father of Geography’. Drawing on nearly a thousand years of classical ...

Most common world maps are highly size distorted, with any land masses located toward the poles tending to look much bigger than they really are, which, in some ways, makes this weird-looking ...

In 1569, Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator synthesized existing ideas in navigation and cartography to create a new type of world map. It has stood the test of time: Billions of people would ...

MAPS of the world have the impossible task of portraying the Earth—a three-dimensional shape—on a flat sheet of paper. Mapmakers have to choose a projection of the globe that approximates the basic ...

The urge to map is a basic, enduring human instinct. Where would we be without maps? The obvious answer is, of course, 'lost', but maps provide answers to many more questions than simply how to get ...