Map+Projections


 * Map Projection**

What is cartography? **Is the study and practice of making geographical maps.**

What is a cartographic map projection? **Is any method of representing the surface of a sphere or other shape on a plane.**

Why is the Earth’s shape called a spheroid or oblate ellipsoid? **Because the Earth is not completely/perfectly round.**

How is latitude measured? What does it show? **It is measured in degresse North or South,It shows the location of a place North or South.**

What are the Earth’s hemispheres? What separates the hemispheres? **Eastern Hemisphere, Western Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, and Northern Hemisphere,The Prime Merridian and The Equator.**

Explain why the Tropic of Capricorn and Tropic of Cancer are important.**The Tropic of Capricorn is important because it is the most southern place were the sun can be directly above at noon.The Tropic of Cancer is the circle of latitude on the earth that marks the northernmost path of the sun — the apparent "equator" — on the day of the northern summer solstice or the southern winter solstice.**

Why doesn’t the sun set at the Antarctic Circle on December 21?**This happens because the Earth's axis is tilted, by approximately 23.5 degrees, relative to ecliptic (the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun).**

What is the accepted Prime Meridian? Why is this a convenient location ? **It is accepted in Greenwich England,Because the whole world will accept that.**

Why do all map projections have distortion? What things are distorted? **Because all maps have strengths and weaknesses:Distance,Direction,Shape,Area.**

Why are Mercator maps often used incorrectly as world maps? How should it be used? Why? **Because they distort size,For things around the equator.**

Look at the Equidistant Cylindrical map. What happens to the actually distance the farther north or south of the Equator you measure? Why? **It gets wider as it goes north/south.**

Why is the shortest distance between two points on a map usually not a straight line? Explain. **Because the Earth is curved.**

What are the pros and cons of using a conformal map? **It is able to detail curves and it does not show exact area.**