Mercator Model

Peters Model

Winkel-Trippel Projection

The Mercator map has always been a poor projection for a world map yet due to its rectangular grid and shape, geographically illiterate publishers found it useful for wall maps, atlas maps, and maps in books and newspapers published by non-geographers. It became the standard map projection in the mental map of most westerners. The argument against the Mercator projection by the pro-Peters folks usually discusses its "advantage for colonial powers" by making Europe look a lot larger than it actually is on the globe.

As far back as 1902, a cartographer warned, "People's ideas of geography are not founded on actual facts but on Mercator's map." (Monmonier, 21) In 1947, a U.S. State Department geographer wrote in Scientific Monthly that the "use of the Mercator projection for world maps should be abjured [renounced] by authors and publishers for all purposes." Robinson further reiterated this position in his first edition of his Elements of Cartography textbook, issued in 1953, when he called the Mercator projection "of little use for purposes other than navigation." The Mercator map is still used for navigation but that's all it should be used for.

Mercator ProjectionFortunately, over the past few decades, the Mercator projection has fallen into disuse from many reliable sources. In a 1980s study, two British geographers discovered that the Mercator map did not exist among dozens of atlases examined. Mark Manmonier also discovered that good atlases lacked the Mercator projection but that some schools still hung onto old Mercator wall maps. Unfortunately, major map companies still produce wall maps using the Mercator projection. This still needs to be corrected - while it's impossible to purchase a Mercator wall map from school wall map publisher Nystrom, huge map companies Rand McNally, Hammond and American Map Company all still produce Mercator wall maps.

Cylindrical Projection – Robinson

In the 1960s Arthur H. Robinson, a Wisconsin geography professor, developed a projection which has become much more popular than the Mercator projection for world maps. It was developed because modern map makers had become dissatisfied with the distortions inherent in the Mercator projection and they wanted a world projection which ‘looked’ more like reality.

In its time, the Robinson projection replaced the Mercator projection as the preferred projection for world maps. Major publishing houses which have used the Robinson projection include Rand McNally and National Geographic.

As it is a pseudo-cylindrical projection, the Equator is its Standard Parallel and it still has similar distortion problems to the Mercator projection.