Analyze the map below and answer the question that follows. Image by Mdf The Mercator map is historically one of the world's most popular map projections. Describe this projection. Why was it created, and what kinds of distortion can you see?

Answer:

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.