New Projections for World Maps / a Quantitative Perceptive Approach

The increasing use of maps in mass communication influences to a large extent our concept of geographic space. This is particularly so for world maps. Therefore, the preservation of continental shape should be regarded as an important property of such maps. This paper provides a quantitative measure of continental shape distortion. An operational tool is proposed for the development of world maps that are acceptable from a perceptive point of view but which, at the same time, result from the minimization of an objective distortion criterion.