Map Projections

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 13158 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 24129 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 13336 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 12725 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 11121 km.

The distance between Kabul and Washington DC in this map is 16252 km.

Significance of Map Projections

There are different map projections to represent the Earth. Earth is a three dimensional object that needs to be represented on a two dimensional surface. Therefore we have different map projections that stress on different characteristics of the Earth.

The conformal map projection preserves angles locally. The Mercator and World Stereographic are the two conformal map projection posted. In both the maps the angles have been preserved that is the angles projected on the sphere are the same as on the map. However the conformal maps distort the area and that is the reason the poles appear larger than the area near the equator. We can see in both the maps that Canada is almost the same size as Africa which is not true. These maps are helpful to represent small areas. And we can see from the measurements of distances from Kabul and Washington DC that the distances are more than the actual distances.

The next map projection is the equidistant map projection. As the name suggests, equidistant map projections preserve distance from standard point or line. In the project submitted, Azimuthal Equidistant and Two Point Equidistant are two types of equidistant map projections. These map projections. This map will show the correct distance from the standard point to any point in the world. Like in Azimuthal Equidistant one particular city is chosen as the standard city all the distances measured from that city are preserved.

The last map projection is the equal area map projection. Again as the name suggests this map preserves equal area. In the maps submitted, the Mollweide and sinusoidal are the two equal map projections. We can see from the distances measured from Kabul and Washington DC that the distances are close to the actual values. This type of representation is usually used to male world maps since they preserve the area of all the countries.