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Fig. 1. Wallace's (1876) Mercator projection of the world. Simplified outline, with continental faunal regions as named and bounded by Wallace; cf. Frontispiece
and Figure 46.
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The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection presented by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for nautical purposes because of its ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines or loxodromes, as straight segments that conserve the angles with the meridians.
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The Robinson projectionis a map projection of a world map which shows the entire world at once.
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The Goode homolosine projection (or interrupted Goode homolosine projection) is a pseudocylindrical, equal-area, composite map projection used for world maps. Normally it is presented with multiple interruptions. Its equal-area property makes it useful for presenting spatial distribution of phenomena.
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The sinusoidal projection is a pseudocylindrical equal-area map projection, sometimes called the Sanson–Flamsteed or the Mercator equal-area projection. Jean Cossin of Dieppe was one of the first mapmakers to use the sinusoidal, appearing in a world map of 1570.
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The Mollweide projection is an equal-area, pseudocylindrical map projection generally used for global maps of the world or night sky.
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TheLambert azimuthal equal-areaprojection is a particular mapping from a sphere to a disk (that is, a region bounded by a circle). It accurately represents area in all regions of the sphere, but it does not accurately represent angles. It is named for the Swiss mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert, who announced it in 1772.
"Zenithal" being synonymous with "azimuthal", the projection is also known as the Lambert zenithal equal-area projection.
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The best map of the world is a globe. A transparent globe would be best of all. The best flat map for use in zoogeography is the orthographic, which is simply a picture or diagram of the world as it would look from an infinite distance. The orthographic projection is rather scorned by cartographers, for neither distances nor areas can be measured on it and it can show only half the world in one continuous view, but no other flat map allows the eye so well to appreciate distances, areas, climatic zones, and broad geographic patterns in relation to the round earth. These things cannot be measured on an orthographic map but they can be seen and understood, and it is the understanding that matters.
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The best map of the world is a globe. A transparent globe would be best of all. The best flat map for use in zoogeography is the orthographic, which is simply a picture or diagram of the world as it would look from an infinite distance. The orthographic projection is rather scorned by cartographers, for neither distances nor areas can be measured on it and it can show only half the world in one continuous view, but no other flat map allows the eye so well to appreciate distances, areas, climatic zones, and broad geographic patterns in relation to the round earth. These things cannot be measured on an orthographic map but they can be seen and understood, and it is the understanding that matters.
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In spite of the small amount of land and its uneven distribution, most of the land forms a single, more or less continuous system (see Frontispiece). All the main continents (except Antarctica) are connected or nearly so or are linked by archipelagos so that, as Wallace says (1876, Vol. 1, p. 37), it would probably be possible to travel over the whole system of continents without ever being out of sight of land.
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Moreover, very recently, perhaps only 10,000 years ago, the land was still more nearly continuous: Asia and North America were connected across the Bering Sea;
Sumatra, Java, and Borneo were joined to Asia; Celebes was separated from Borneo perhaps only 25 miles of water; and other water gaps between Asia and Australia were fewer and narrower than now.
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Astraitis a naturally formed, narrow, typically navigable waterway that connects two larger bodies of water. Most commonly it is a channel of water that lies between two land masses. Some straits are not navigable, for example because they are too shallow, or because of an unnavigable reef orarchipelago.
Archipelagois a scattered group of islands within the same body of water. The islands are considered part of a larger land mass. Places such as Hawaii and the Virgin Islands are considered to be archipelagos. Also the Indo-Malayan archipelago is the biggest of all, formed after the last glacial age.
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The main system of continents is arranged so that, north of the tropics, there are large areas of land which are nearly connected; within the tropics, large areas which are separated from each other; and south of the tropics, smaller areas which are very widely separated from each other.
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The three major climate zones on the Earth are the polar, temperate, and tropicalzones. Temperatures in these threeclimate zonesare determined mainly by the location, or latitude, of the zone. polar- has the coldest with temperatures almost always below freezing.
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