Project 1:
Plotting Coordinates and Projections

Created with Interactive Album of Map Projections. The map is bounded by the latitude lines of 42 degrees North and 38 degrees North and the longitude lines 72 degrees West and 78 degrees West. This is a Plate Carree map projection, which has shape and area distortion. The scale is accurate "along the Equator and along all meridians", but along lines of longitude it increases as the distance from the equator increases.

The geographic coordinate system uses two pieces of information, both angle measurements, to identify each location on the face of the Earth. The first, latitude, is the angle of separation between the equator and the location in question in a strictly north-south direction. The second, longitude, is the angle of spearation between the prime meridian (a line perpendicular to the equator) and the location in question in a strictly east-west direction. The directions North, South, East, and West are often abbreviated N, S, E, and W, respectively.

The Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Coordinate system identifies locations with distances from an origin point measured in meters. Such distances are much more easily plotted on flat maps than the angular distances given in the aformentioned latitude/longitude location system. The North American Datum of 1927 (NAD27) is an ellipsoid used to appromixte the shape of the Earth for use in location systems. It was optimized for North America. It has since been replaced with the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83), which is based on a global ellipsoid with its center at the center of the Earth.

The State Place Coordinate system is based on mapping and uses local origins instead of far away global origins like other systems. This makes it more accurate for local measurements. Like the previous coordinate system, each point is written as a distance east of the origin and a distance north of the origin. These distances are much easier to use on maps than angles.