GIS Map Projections

 


This week's lab exercise looked at the importance of map projections in GIS, especially when using multiple datasets. The map above shows four counties in Florida that are displayed using the Albers Conical Equal Area, NAD 1983 UTM Zone 16N, and NAD 1983 HARN State Plane Florida North FIPS 0903 (US Feet) map projections. As the table within the map shows, the areas of the counties vary depending on the map projections. The best map projections are ones that shows the least distortion between map features. For example, The UTM projection is best when used the map features fit within one UTM zone, which is not the case for showing the entire state of Florida. The same can be said for the Florida State Plane that is dependent on the region of interest. Therefore, the map projection would need to be Albers since it minimizes distortion between its standard parallels. 

Overall, this lab illustrates how important it is to use accurate map projections since it can cause distortions between datasets, like several square miles as shown in the table above. When starting a project, the map projection is entirely dependent on the data's extent when selecting map projections and it is the user's responsibility to make sure the data is transformed correctly. All in all, it was a pretty fun lab!

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