Mollweide projection

The projection was first published by mathematician and astronomer Karl (or Carl) Brandan Mollweide (1774–1825) of Leipzig in 1805.

The meridians at 90 degrees east and west form a perfect circle, and the whole earth is depicted in a proportional 2:1 ellipse.

A sinusoidal interrupted Mollweide projection discards the central meridian in favor of alternating half-meridians which terminate at right angles to the equator.

More rarely, the projection can be drawn obliquely to shift the areas of distortion to the oceans, allowing the continents to remain truer to form.

The Mollweide, or its properties, has inspired the creation of several other projections, including the Goode's homolosine, van der Grinten and the Boggs eumorphic.

Mollweide projection of the world
The Mollweide projection with Tissot's indicatrix of deformation
Nine-year WMAP image (2012) of the cosmic microwave background radiation . [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Projected using the Mollweide projection.
Sea-surface freon levels measured by the Global Ocean Data Analysis Project . Projected using the Mollweide projection.
Allen K. Philbrick (1953) Sinu-Mollweide uninterrupted projection, with Tissot indicatrices