projections
Earth is a round, three-dimensional ball. In a small area, Earth looks flat, so it is not hard to make accurate maps of a small place. When mapmakers want to map the round Earth on flat paper, they use projections. What happens if you try to flatten out the skin of a peeled orange? Or if you try to gift wrap a soccer ball? To flatten out, the orange peel must rip, and its shape must become distorted. To wrap a round object with flat paper requires lots of extra cuts and folds. A projection is a way to represent Earths curved surface on flat paper Figure below .