World map

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This article is about maps of the Earth. For other uses, see World map (disambiguation).

A world map is a map of the surface of the Earth, which may be made using any of a number of different map projections.

Maps of the world are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical map is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.

Projections

A Winkel Tripel projection, argued by Goldberg & Gott as the best overall whole-earth map projection known,[1] and the standard projection for world maps made by the National Geographic Society.
Main article: Map projection

Maps that depict the surface of the Earth use a projection, a way of translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Perhaps the best-known world-map projection is the Mercator Projection, originally designed as a form of nautical chart.

Aeroplane pilots use aeronautical charts based on a Lambert conformal conic projection, in which a cone is laid over the section of the earth to be mapped. The cone intersects the sphere (the earth) at one or two parallels which are chosen as standard lines. This allows the pilots to plot a great circle (shortest distance) route approximation on a flat, two-dimensional chart.

Projections

Further information: map projection

Thematic

Further information: thematic map

  • Elevation map

  • Present day Earth altimetry and bathymetry (Mollweide projection)

  • Topographical map of the world

  • map of anthropogenic CO2 emission by country

  • UN Human Development Index by country as of 2008

  • Volcano Map

  • world map showing the continents as of 200 million years ago (Triassic period)

Historical

Further information: Early world maps

  • World map according to Posidonius (150-130 B.C.)

  • Tabula Rogeriana world map by Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154

  • A World map produced in Amsterdam 1689

See also

Projections

References

  1. ↑ Large-Scale Distortions in Map Projections, 2007, David M. Goldberg & J. Richard Gott III, 2007, V42 N4.

External links

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