Figure 2.17: A Mercator projection translates the curved surface of Earth onto a cylinder.
( 24 )
However, because it is a flat map of a curved surface, a straight line on the map is not the
shortest distance between the two points it connects.
Figure 2.18: A conic map projection wraps the Earth with a cone shape rather than a
cylinder. ( 40 )
Instead of a cylinder, you might try wrapping the flat paper into a cone. Conicmap
projections use a cone shape to better represent regions equally (Figure2.18). This type of
map does best at showing the area where the cone shape touches the globe, which would be
along a line of latitude, like the equator. Maybe you don’t like trying to wrap a flat piece
of paper around a round object at all. In this case, you could put a flat piece of paper right
on the area that you want to map. This type of map is called agnomonicmap projection
(Figure2.19). The paper only touches the Earth at one point, but it will do a good job
showing sizes and shapes of countries near that point. The poles are often mapped this way,