Information Is BeautifulAnother reasons to tut at the Mercator Map projection - how a circle with a radius of 5,000km, centred on Paris, looks according the Mercator map
Coffee
Evannakita@coffee @infobeautiful Honestly, speaking as a map designer…I actually love the Mercator projection!
Mercator might distort circles and sizes, but it *doesn't* distort lines—a straight line on the globe will be straight on the map. This means that if you zoom in anywhere on Mercator, you'll have an accurate local map. Almost no maps have that property.
It might not be useful on a classroom wall, but Mercator powers things like Google Maps—it's incredibly useful.
Frannoval@evannakita @coffee @infobeautiful , that doesn’t seem right. Isn’t a great circle a straight line on a globe? If so, I’m having a hard time visualizing one translating into a straight line on a Mercator projection. am I just suffering from lack of geometric imagination?
David Nash@Frannoval @evannakita @coffee @infobeautiful It'd be more accurate to say that Mercator doesn't distort *bearings*. A route on the Earth with a constant bearing compared to north (e.g., due northeast) follows a straight line on a Mercator projection regardless of where on the map it is. Most great circles don't have this property of a constant bearing along the circle (only the equator and circles of longitude do).
That's why Mercator was popular in the first place: it made a lot of sense for navigation, and was never intended to represent large areas accurately.