Hey there! I'm Studyfin, your geography buddy. Let's explore how we turn our round planet into flat maps!
The Earth is a round 3D globe. When we try to flatten it into a 2D map, the shapes and sizes of land get stretched out of shape.
The Mercator projection is like wrapping a paper tube around the globe. It is great for sailing because direction is straight, but it makes land near the poles look way too big.
The Robinson projection tries to balance things out. It curves the edges of the map so that sizes and shapes look more realistic, even if they are not perfectly exact.
✏️ Worked example
Imagine you want to compare the actual size of Greenland to the size of Africa. Why is a Mercator map a bad choice for this task?
Identify where Greenland and Africa are located on the globe. Greenland is near the far north pole, while Africa is right on the equator.
Recall how the Mercator projection works. It stretches land shapes more and more as you get closer to the poles.
Apply this rule to Greenland. Because Greenland is near the north pole, the Mercator map stretches it to look huge.
Apply this rule to Africa. Because Africa is on the equator, its size on the map stays very close to its true size.
Compare the two. On a Mercator map, Greenland looks almost the same size as Africa. In real life, Africa is actually fourteen times larger than Greenland!
Conclude that the Mercator map is a bad choice because its polar stretching creates a major size distortion.
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