Maps+Projections

What is cartography? - The art of map making.

What is a cartographic map projection? - Creating a map.

Why is the Earth’s shape called a spheroid or oblate ellipsoid? - To get an idea.

How is latitude measured? What does it show? - Latitude is measured across, and it shows the measurement around the Earth.

What are the Earth’s hemispheres? What separates the hemispheres? - Northern, southern, western, and eastern. The rivers and objects between them.

Explain why the Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer are important. - Tropic of cancer is one of five major degree measures or major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. Tropic of capricorn marks the most southerly latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead at noon.

Why doesn’t the sun set at the Antarctic Circle on December 21? - Because the suns has to make it around before it can set.

What is the accepted Prime Meridian? Why is this a convenient location? - Is the internationally accepted Prime Meridian on most charts. This is a convenient location because it shows where the Prime Meridian is located.

Why do all map projections have distortion? What things are distorted? - All maps projections have distortion because they cant really show what it looks like in a map so they distortion them. The shape of the earth are things that are distorted.

Why are Mercator maps often used incorrectly as world maps? How should it be used? Why? - Because they have lines of latitude and longitude. It should be used as a navigator since straight lines on the Mercator projection are loxodromes or rhumb lines.

Look at the Equidistant Cylindrical map. What happens to the actually distance the farther north or south of the Equator you measure? Why? - It measures the same distance all the way around because its a flat map.

Why is the shortest distance between two points on a map usually not a straight line? Explain. - Because the map turns to make it more accurate with the measurement.

What are the pros and cons of using a conformal map? - For the pros the maps round easier to get good measurements, gives you a look better at the map, and cons for a conformal map is that its harder to measure because the lines are round.