Mapa Robinson Y Mercator

Getting to know the maps


Cartography is the art and science of graphically representing a geographical area, usually on a flat surface as a map or chart; it may involve the superimposition ofpolitical, cultural, or other non geographical divisions onto the representation of a geographic area.

Why are globe much more accurate that flat maps of the world? In order to answer this questionyou must do the following activity for homework.

Maps are graphic representations of places that use point, line, and area symbols, as well as color, to show how selected human and physicalfeatures are located, arranged, distributed, and related to one another. No single map can show everything, so the features portrayed on each map are selected to fit a particular purpose. It is impossible toaccurately depict the spherical Earth on a flat surface without distorting shape, area, distance, or direction (try peeling an orange and flattening it out!), so cartographers use differentprojections to preserve selected properties (shape, size, distance, direction), while others get distorted
 
Mercator Projections

In 1569, a geographer named Gerardus Mercator created a flat map to helpsailors navigate long journeys around the globe. To make this map flat, Mercator expanded the area between the longitudes near the poles. Mercator’s map was very useful to sailors. They made carefulnotes about the distortions they found on their journeys. More than 400 years later, those notes and the Mercator projection are still used by nearly all deep sea navigators.
When Mercator made hismap, he made sure that the shape of landmasses and the ocean areas where similar to the shapes on a globe. But he had to stretch the spaces between the longitudes. This distorted the sizes of some landin the map. Land near the Equator was right but the land near the poles became much more, larger than it should be.
For example, Greenland looks bigger than South America, and it is only the size of...