Like let’s say that we start on the cape of goodwill for example and follow the coast.
Represent each 1km with 1mm for example on our map (map size isn’t a problem just for the sake of the argument). Getting the directions of drawing off a compass exactly. And just walk around all the coasts of the world.
What type of map do we end up with in this hypothetical?
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For these small scale (very zoomed out charts) we use the Mercator projection in the maritime (actually for all paper charts, also larger scales)
The Mercator projections is basically the globe projected from the center onto a cylinder. The cylinder can then be rolled out to a flat sheet. This is stretching the drawing the more we are getting away from the equator, the classic “Greenland is as big as Africa”. But very interesting, the angles are true and makes it easy to put out courses.
We usually measure the length scale on the N/S edge of the charts, as the one end might have a significant different scale than the other when coming to precision plotting.
If you decided to make a chart with the same scale all the way, you end up making a very cubby looking chart where you can’t measure true angles or plot courses and positions easy.
When charts was hand drawn there was for a long time significant errors as it was a lot of triangulation calculation, but as the instruments and calculations got better, the maps also got better
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