Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections
Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections By John P. Snyder
1993 | 384 Pages | ISBN: 0226767469 | scanned PDF | 92 MB
1993 | 384 Pages | ISBN: 0226767469 | scanned PDF | 92 MB
As long as there have been maps, cartographers have grappled with the impossibility of portraying the earth in two dimensions. To solve this problem mapmakers have created hundreds of map projections, mathematical methods for drawing the round earth on a flat surface. Yet of the hundreds of existing projections, and the infinite number that are theoretically possible, none is perfectly accurate. "Flattening the Earth" is a detailed history of map projections. John P. Snyder discusses and illustrates the hundreds of known projections created from 500 B.C. to the present, emphasizing developments since the Renaissance and closing with a look at the variety of projections made possible by computers.