Interrupted Goode Homolosine
Goode does not hide the price of flattening a globe. It cuts oceans to preserve area and reduce continental deformation.
Compromise by cutting
Sinusoidal geometry is used at lower latitudes and Mollweide at higher latitudes. Both parts are equal-area and meet while preserving areal scale.
The seams matter most. Each lobe gets its own central meridian, so deformation cannot keep accumulating across one wide sheet.
Global Cartographic Grid
Distortion Properties
| Property | Characteristic |
|---|---|
| Area | ✅PreservedPreserved throughout the map |
| Shape | ❌DistortedContinental deformation reduced by splitting the map into lobes |
| Distances | ✅PreservedNot preserved globally |
| Angles & Directions | ✅PreservedNot preserved |
| Continuity | ❌DistortedDeliberately interrupted, by default mostly through oceans |
History & Origin
John Paul Goode combined the Sinusoidal projection at lower latitudes with Mollweide at higher latitudes, then divided the map into lobes. The result is an equal-area world map that sacrifices ocean continuity to reduce land distortion.
Applications
Thematic atlases and global environmental data such as biomes, population, crops, and other phenomena where comparing area matters more than continuous routes.
How to read this map
An orange peel slit in several places before being pressed onto a table.
- Compare areas — they are preserved.
- Do not visually join the two edges of a seam.
- Shapes are improved, not perfect.
What you gain and lose
It sacrifices ocean and route continuity to preserve area and reduce land deformation.
Thematic atlases, biomes, population, climate, and global areal data.
Navigation, ocean currents, and relationships crossing seams.
Can you recognize this projection without the label?
The projection quiz uses graticules and world outlines, so it is a natural next step from this page.
One attempt, the same set for everyone
Size Illusion · Build a streak and come back tomorrow for another map.
✦ How do different countries look in this projection?
Analyze shape distortions of 5 countries in this cartographic projection and test them in the sandbox.
Facts worth remembering
- It combines Sinusoidal and Mollweide projections.
- It preserves area despite its distinctive interruptions.
- The default layout has six principal lobes.
Keep reading about maps that reshape intuition
Frequently Asked Questions
Interruptions move the largest discontinuities into selected seams, allowing continents to stay closer to their true proportions and shapes.
No. It preserves area; the interruptions merely reduce visible shape deformation within selected lobes.
Only for local routes contained in one lobe. A route crossing a seam is visually split and should not be read as a continuous navigation line.