Even More Maps, Yay! (Pros and Cons)

The Mercator Map:

Cons-

• inflates the size of objects away from the equator
• Greenland and Antarctica appear much larger than they are
• only accurate along equator, nowhere else
• many other countries are either smaller or larger than they actually are 
•  distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the Equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite

Pros-

• became first standard map for navigation
• used by street map services on internet
• accurate along equator
• ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines or loxodromes, as straight segments that conserve the angles with the meridians.
• The two properties, conformality and straight rhumb lines, make this projection uniquely suited to marine navigation: courses and bearings are measured using wind roses or protractors, and the corresponding directions are easily transferred from point to point, on the map, with the help of a parallel ruler or a pair of navigational protractor triangles.

The Gall-Peters Map:

Cons-

• still not completely accurate
• because it's equal-area projection, it has to distort most countries
• Peters’s map lacks distance fidelity everywhere except along the 45th parallels north and south, and then only in the direction of those parallels. No world projection is good at preserving distances everywhere; Peters’s and all other cylindric projections are especially bad in that regard because east-west distances inevitably balloon toward the poles.

Pros-

• more accurate than Mercador
• Antarctica and Greenland are the right size
•  areas of equal size on the globe are also equally sized on the map