![]() ![]() Shortest route between the two locations. Straight line connecting that central point to any other point on the map will represent the The Azimuthal Equidistant projection may be centered on any point on the earth's surface. The following is a summary of some of those map projections and their individual characteristics. On some map projections, great-circle arcs are represented as straight lines, making them quite convenient to use for determining great-circle distances, directions, or courses. The most useful thing about a great-circle arc is that on the earth's surface, or on a map, it shows the shortest distance between points along that line. At the scale of a city or even a small country, the inaccuracies caused by projecting the spherical surface to a flat page are not very great.Ī great circle is a trace on the surface of the earth of a plane that passes through the center of the earth and divides it into halves. Such as a hemisphere or the entire world. ![]() The amount of such distortion is significant only if the map shows a large portion of the earth's surface, Thus, it is quite common for directions and distances between pairs of locations to be represented unrealistically on maps. Imagine trying to flatten out a globe you would have to stretch it here, compress it there, causing its scale to vary across the surface. Like so many other problems encountered in mapping, the difficulty stems from the simple fact that the earth is a curved surface and a map is flat: A map must depict a three-dimensional form in only two dimensions. ![]() The fact is, there are only a few ways of creating a world map so that the shortest distance between two points is shown by a straight line. "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line" - or is it? This familiar axiom rarely is true on maps of the world. ![]()
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