Mercator Projection

• Still in common use is a map projection made in the 16th century by the Belgian cartographer, Gerardus Mercator. It is classified as a cylindrical projection since a rectangular map is created by wrapping it around a globe to create a cylinder and then increasing the areas at the poles. It was used for maritime purposes because it showed lines of bearing as straight lines. Although useful for navigation it is not accurate in representing the size of land masses, with Greenland falsely appearing to be larger than South America.
  
  

Pseudocylindrical Projection

• This alternative to the Mercator cylindrical projection makes the Earth into a diamond shape with rounded corners. The extension at the left and right sections of the map compensates for expansion at the poles while retaining the straight lines of bearing. The map is thus relatively accurate and useful for navigation.
  
  

Azimuthal Projection

• The original azimuthal projections used two separate circles to portray the two hemispheres of the planet. This allowed the map to be depicted as split lengthwise, west to east, or widthwise, north to south. This creates a very accurate projection of Earth, but it not useful for navigation and makes it harder to establish relative position as you are essentially working from two separate maps. The modified azimuthal projection is quite similar to the pseudocylindrical projection in that it extends the Earth at the sides into a modified egg shape.
  
  

Conical Projection

• Conical projection maps use a similar projection method as the cylindrical, but using a cone rather than a cylinder. As with the Mercator projection, lines of straight bearing are created on the map, but since the North Pole area is not expanded, the relative size of the countries and continents is more accurate.
  
  

Pseudoconic Projection

• Pseudoconic projections take the idea of relative position and size to the extreme by massively altering the shape of the Earth. A lot of the alternative projections have made the Earth more elliptical so as to prevent the expansion of the poles from altering the size of all the continents, but some pseudoconic projections are butterfly-shaped or even heart-shaped. The heart-shaped projections make the Arctic a single spot at the top of the planet and expand the Earth from this point. The butterfly splits the planet into two separate heart shapes, with Eastern and Western hemispheres on opposite "wings."