cylindrical projection

Scientific  

/ sə-lĭn′drĭ-kəl /

1. A map projection in which the surface features of a globe are depicted as if projected onto a cylinder typically positioned with the globe centered horizontally inside the cylinder. In flattened form, a cylindrical projection so centered produces a rectangular map with the equator in the middle and the poles at the top and bottom. Parallels and meridians appear as straight lines that intersect each other at right angles in a grid pattern, with the meridians equally spaced and the parallels spaced progressively farther apart moving away form the equator. Distortion of shape and scale in a whole-world cylindrical projection is minimal in equatorial regions and maximal at the poles.

2. Compare azimuthal projection conic projection See illustration at Mercator projection

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Example Sentences

This stretched view is called a “cylindrical projection map,” and it’s the most detailed color map of Pluto ever made.

From The Verge

Humans have been perfecting cartography ever since, culminating in the first of what we'd recognize as a "modern" world map: Gerardus Mercator's famous cylindrical projection in 1569.

From Washington Post

At the centre of the upper surface of the exhausted chamber there is a solid cylindrical projection x, to the top of which the principal lever cde is attached.

From Project Gutenberg