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A world map is a map of most or all of the surface of the Earth. World maps form a distinctive category of maps due to the problem of projection. Maps by necessity distort the presentation of the earth's surface. These distortions reach extremes in a world map. The many ways of projecting the earth reflect diverse technical and aesthetic goals for world maps.〔 〕 World maps are also distinct for the global knowledge required to construct them. A meaningful map of the world could not be constructed before the European Renaissance because less than half of the earth's coastlines, let alone its interior regions, were known to any culture. New knowledge of the earth's surface has been accumulating ever since and continues to this day. Maps of the world generally focus either on political features or on physical features. Political maps emphasize territorial boundaries and human settlement. Physical maps show geographic features such as mountains, soil type or land use. Geological maps show not only the surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures. Choropleth maps use color hue and intensity to contrast differences between regions, such as demographic or economic statistics. ==Map projections== A map is made using a map projection, which is any method of representing a globe on a plane. All projections distort distances and directions, and each projection distributes those distortions differently. Perhaps the most well known projection is the Mercator Projection, originally designed as a nautical chart. File:Mercator projection SW.jpg| Mercator projection (82°S and 82°N.) File:Mollweide projection SW.jpg | Mollweide projection Image:Cahill Butterfly Map.jpg | B. J. S. Cahill Butterfly Map, 1909, from 1919 pamphlet File:Azimuthal equidistant projection SW.jpg|Polar azimuthal equidistant projection Image:Blank-map-world-south-up.png|A south-up map Image:BlankMap-World-162E-flat.svg | Pacific-centric map (more commonly used in East Asian countries and Australia) File:Gall–Peters projection SW.jpg|Gall–Peters projection, an equal area map projection File:Robinson projection SW.jpg|Robinson projection, used by National Geographic Society 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「World map」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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