World Geography Today [antikvár]

The drawing shown on the cover of this textbook is a sinusoidal (SIE-nuh-SOl-dul) map projection of the world. You probably noticed that it does not show the world as you are used to seeing it. A globe cannot be flattened onto a piece of paper without being stretched or distorted. When we project a "flattened" globe onto a piece of paper we create a map projection. The stretching and distortions in any projection show up as inaccuracies in size, shape, distance, and direction. A sinusoidal projection is an equal-area map. This means that while areas are true, shapes are not. Shapes are most accurate near the center of the map and least accurate near the edges. This projection is rarely used by itself. Its best parts are combined with the best parts of another projection to result in a map in which everything is fairly but not completely accurate. You will learn more about map projections in Chapter 6. Geography is many things. It includes our natural surroundings, the resources and needs of the world's nations, and the relationship between people and the land they live on. Mostly, geography is the study of the kinds of landforms and climates that form our physical environment, how they are arranged on the earth, and how they influence the way we live. In this book we will study how people are distributed over the earth, how they make their living from it—and how they change it.