How is the difficulty with the Mercator Projection solved?

• A. Polar projection
• B. Gnomonic projection
• C. Lambert projection
• D. Equal-area projection

Answer: (A)

Mercator keeps shapes locally but distorts sizes more and more as you move away from the equator. The scale grows with latitude, so the polar regions become wildly exaggerated on the map. To map those polar areas more accurately, a projection designed for the poles is used—a polar projection. By centering the projection on the pole and projecting onto a plane from that point, distortion near the pole is minimized, giving a more faithful view of the Arctic or Antarctic regions. The other projections optimize different properties (area, distance, or mid-latitude accuracy) but don’t specifically address the extreme distortion near the poles the way a polar projection does.