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This article is about maps of the Earth. For other uses, see World map (disambiguation).

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A world map is a map of the surface of the Earth, which may be made using any of a number of different map projections.

Maps of the world are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical map is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.

[edit] Projections

A Winkel Tripel projection, argued by Goldberg & Gott as the best overall whole-earth map projection known,^[1] and the standard projection for world maps made by the National Geographic Society.

Main article: Map projection

Maps that depict the surface of the Earth use a projection, a way of translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Perhaps the best-known world-map projection is the Mercator Projection, originally designed as a form of nautical chart.

Aeroplane pilots use aeronautical charts based on a Lambert conformal conic projection, in which a cone is laid over the section of the earth to be mapped. The cone intersects the sphere (the earth) at one or two parallels which are chosen as standard lines. This allows the pilots to plot a great circle (shortest distance) route approximation on a flat, two-dimensional chart.

[edit] Projections

Further information: map projection

Mercator projection	Mollweide projection	B.J.S. Cahill Butterfly Map, 1909, from 1919 pamphlet
Dymaxion projection

[edit] Thematic

Further information: thematic map

Elevation map	A simple political map of the World as of 2008	Pacific-centric map (more commonly used in China and Japan)
Present day Earth altimetry and bathymetry (Mollweide projection)	Topographical map of the world	map of anthropogenic CO2 emission by country
UN Human Development Index by country as of 2008	Volcano Map	world map showing the continents as of 200 million years ago (Triassic period)