page_title: Cartographic design
section_title: Projections
hierarchical_section_title: Cartographic design / Aspects of Design / Projections
caption_attribution_description: English: Equal Earth projection. 15° graticule. Imagery is a derivative of NASA’s Blue Marble summer month composite with oceans lightened to enhance legibility and contrast. Image created with the Geocart map projection software.
context_page_description: Cartographic design or map design is the process of crafting the appearance of a map, applying the principles of design and knowledge of how maps are used to create a map that has both aesthetic appeal and practical function. It shares this dual goal with almost all forms of design; it also shares with other design, especially Graphic design, the three skill sets of artistic talent, scientific reasoning, and technology. As a discipline, it integrates design, geography, and geographic information science.
  Arthur H. Robinson, considered the father of cartography as an academic research discipline in the United States, stated that a map not properly designed "will be a cartographic failure." He also claimed, when considering all aspects of cartography, that "map design is perhaps the most complex."
context_section_description: Because the Earth is (nearly) spherical, any planar representation (a map) requires it to be flattened in some way, known as a projection. Most map projections are implemented using mathematical formulas and computer algorithms based on  geographic coordinates (latitude, longitude). All projections generate distortions such that shapes and areas cannot both be conserved simultaneously, and distances can never all be preserved. The mapmaker must choose a suitable map projection according to the space to be mapped and the purpose of the map; this decision process becomes increasingly important as the scope of the map increases; while a variety of projections would be indistinguishable on a city street map, there are dozens of drastically different ways of projecting the entire world, with extreme variations in the type, degree, and location of distortion.
caption: The Equal Earth projection (2018), an increasingly popular equal-area pseudocylindrical projection for world maps
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