I remember being told this in high school and being totally confused. My teacher told us that a standard map, or even a globe, is inaccurate. She explained why but I didn’t understand. Why is this?
In: Technology
While there are tons of answers here agreeing that standard maps are inaccurate, that is mostly true for maps *of an entire planet*.
What I have not seen written is that there are standard map projection systems that are designed to depict zoomed-in portions of the earth’s surface and which are perfectly accurate enough for navigation, building, and recording scientific data. The USGS uses UTM for topographic maps. Many states or countries or regions have their own systems (i.e., the Florida State Plane system is widely used by surveyors and for presentation of all sorts of geospatial data).
The better system is from state-sized or the like which tend to act as if the equator was moved to near the subject area (the equator is where error on any map is lowest), and these are designed/optimized by professional cartographers to minimize error across the entire system. UTM is kind of a can of worms to explain, but it historically suits the depiction of blocks of surveyed land in a way that is easy to navigate and easy for the navigator to understand its drawbacks (errors), which tend to be small when zoomed-in enough.
I guess my point is that when zoomed-in to a small enough subject area on globe/map, there are projection systems out there that are acurate and reliable enough for the highest level of practical, real-life applications.
Latest Answers