01
Section 01
Projections
What a projection gives up.
4 entries. Each one names what the choice keeps and what it wrecks.
Plate 01On a globe nothing has to be stretched. Every problem in this register begins when the surface is flattened.
Photo: Longobardo-Dias terrestrial globe · Wikimedia Commons
The entries
What a projection gives up
You cannot flatten a curved surface without tearing or stretching it. Every projection therefore preserves at most one of angle, area and distance, and wrecks the others — which makes the choice a statement about what the map is for.
Conformal, equal-area, equidistant
Three families, three things preserved, and no overlap between them.
Reading the indicatrix
Circles drawn on the globe and projected: their shape on the flat sheet is the distortion, made visible.
Choosing for a continent
Latitude range and shape decide it more than preference does.