Why do cartographers cut the world like an orange peel?
An orange peel cannot be flattened without a decision
Every flat map must distort, compress, or cut the sphere. A rectangle often hides that decision at its edges. The Goode Homolosine makes it explicit.
Two projections in one
Goode combined equal-area Sinusoidal geometry at lower latitudes with Mollweide at higher latitudes. Areas remain comparable, although shapes are still distorted.
Which is larger in reality: Africa or Greenland?
Why use lobes?
Each lobe receives its own central meridian. Rather than letting deformation accumulate across one sheet, the map resets it near several centers and moves discontinuity into seams. The default seams cross oceans to protect land.
Three ways to place the seams
In the lab, switch among “Protect land”, “Protect oceans”, and “No seams”. The ocean-focused aspect rotates the lobe layout so seams cross land more often; the continuous version restores one sheet at the cost of greater outer distortion.
An interrupted map is excellent for biomes, population, and crop area. It is poor for routes or ocean currents crossing its seams.
Source: the USGS study Mapping raster imagery to the interrupted Goode Homolosine projection.
Turn the idea into a click
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