Working with Maps and Data in Geography Answers

This is a political map because it shows Canada’s provinces and territories, their boundaries, and capital cities. Two kinds of information I could gather are the names and locations of each province or territory and the locations of their provincial or territorial capitals, as well as the national capital, Ottawa.

The International Date Line is an imaginary line near 180° longitude, opposite the Prime Meridian, running mostly through the Pacific Ocean and roughly perpendicular to the Equator. It zigzags around islands and countries to avoid dividing territories and communities between two different dates. It is needed to establish where the calendar date changes by one day as people travel around the world.

The Mercator projection places meridians and parallels on a rectangular grid and was created mainly for navigation because compass courses appear as straight lines. It preserves local angles and shapes reasonably well, but distorts area and distance increasingly toward the poles. Greenland and the polar regions appear much larger than they really are, while the poles are stretched and cannot be represented accurately.

This map uses the Robinson projection. It is a compromise projection that gives the world an attractive oval shape with curved parallels and meridians. Its main advantage is that it provides a balanced, visually appealing view with less extreme overall distortion than many other projections. However, it does not preserve area, shape, distance, or direction perfectly, and distortion increases near the edges and poles. I find this projection more appealing than projections such as Mercator because the continents look more proportionate and the entire world fits naturally into the map, although it is less useful for precise navigation or measurement.

Maps could show the best location for the shopping center by displaying population areas, roads, and traffic patterns. They could also show nearby businesses and available land, helping explain how the mall would be accessible and benefit the community.