Flattening the Earth: Two Thousand Years of Map Projections

ISBN-13: 9780226767475 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication date: 12/05/1997 Edition description: 1 Pages: 384 Product dimensions: 6.62(w) x 9.38(h) x 1.00(d) 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 the first detailed history of map projections since 1863. 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. The book contains 170 illustrations, including outline maps from original sources and modern computer