Mercator’s Map ( UPSC Prelims)

News Context

• Designed in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator, this projection was created to address navigation issues by making rhumb lines appear as straight lines on a flat map.
 • Characteristics: It is a conformal map, which means it preserves local shapes and angles by stretching the north-south scale.
 • The map distorts scale, making landmasses near the poles appear larger and equatorial regions appear smaller than they actually are. For example, Africa seems roughly the same size as Greenland, even though it is 14 times larger.
    o The African Union has supported the ‘Correct the Map’ campaign to replace the Mercator map projection with alternatives like the Equal Earth map.