ROBINSON PROJECTION: CHARACTERISTICS, ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The Robinson projection is a cartographic projection created by the Canadian Arthur Robinson, in which the entire globe is shown flat. From the classical Greece of Aristotle and Plato it was necessary to graphically reconstruct geographic spaces to assimilate them with a single glance.

That graphic form were the maps and plans worked to scale. They became allies of the builders and farmers, politicians and the military, travelers and merchants, and supported the priests and their philosophical approaches. However, when considering a representation of the world closer to reality, there were problems.

This is how in the 20th century, at the beginning of the 60s, the university professor Arthur H. Robinson generated a solution. He proposed a projection model to bring the globe to two dimensions, the closest to reality. That technique became known as the Robinson projection.

Cartographic background

A map is a construct that not only describes a reality, but also constructs and creates it. It is worth saying that the maps are the result of observations by human beings; there either the real world or the reality intervened by people is represented.

Cartography is a science and a technique: a science that studies maps and geographic charts, a technique that makes it possible to make such maps.

This science starts from the landscape as a cultural concept, a human elaboration, and works on two types of landscapes: the natural or original, the one that is seen with the naked eye; and the cultural landscape, arisen by dialectical action between the town and the territory where it lives.

Initially the maps were very imaginative and speculative, they were drawn with great difficulty. One of the first projections was that of Mercator, a character from the early 16th century. Based on the stories of sailors and travelers, merchants and warriors, Mercator was making maps of continents and even the world.

However, there was a problem: it was very difficult to represent something round, the Earth, on a flat, two-dimensional surface.

Arthur Robinson

In 1961 the Rand McNally company in Chicago was known for its vocation in map printing. This company commissioned a university professor to develop a formula to make maps as accurate as possible.

It was about Dr. Arthur Robinson (1915-2004). Born in Montreal, Canada to American parents, he trained at the University of Miami and obtained a Ph.D. in Geography in 1947.

During World War II, he worked in the Cartographic Division of Strategic Services in the US He wrote a book entitled Elements of Cartography, which today remains a reference text in all universities.

He chaired the International Cartographic Association and received two very important decorations: that of the American Geographical Society and that of the British Cartographic Society.

Robinson argued that maps are instruments for reading, analyzing and interpreting. They allow to extend the field of vision to see the spatial relationships of both large areas and particular details.

Characteristics of the Robinson projection

To produce a map there are several steps: gathering the data, selecting the most prominent, classifying the information, simplifying it and converting it into symbols.

Robinson began with an artistic approach; her first intention was to achieve a plastic and aesthetic balance. She visualized the shapes and sizes of the masses looking her best.

He worked with various variables until he achieved the optimum point with less distortion. Finally, he established the mathematical formula.

The expert chose degree 38 north and 38 south as middle parallels. These points encompass the temperate zone of the planet. There are most of the solid masses of the Earth and most of the inhabitants of the planet live.

Advantages and benefits

With the Robinson technique, the maps achieved a better balance between size and shape for high latitude areas. Russia and Canada appear true to size, but Greenland is distorted.

The directions are most reliable along all parallels and in the part of the central meridian. The distances are constant along the Equator, the central area of ​​the planet. In addition, a great harmony is achieved and allows a rather attractive flat view.

For that reason, and because it achieves great harmony, the Randy McNally Company long made the Robinson Projection its standard. Also, the National Geographic Society used Robinson's method to develop its maps for nearly a decade.

Both the National Geographic maps and those developed by Randy McNally are world references. Currently this work is preserved and collected in numerous libraries, public and private, in different parts of the world.

Disadvantages

The biggest problem is that converting a spherical reality to the flat sphere entails generating a deformation of the masses that are closest to the extremes.

For example, in the Robinson projection Greenland appears the size of South America. However, this territory is actually only slightly larger than Mexico. Only Brazil is four times larger territorially than that huge Danish frozen island.

The resulting map of this technique is pseudo-cylindrical; it is neither compliant nor equidistant. It lengthens the poles in extended lines rather than ending in points, since all meridians are achieved at the same point at each of the poles. Finally, the distortion of both poles is total.

Perhaps for this reason, in 1998 another projection (the Winkel-Tripel) replaced the Robinson one as the new standard for the elaboration of world maps.

References

1. Azócar Fernández, Pablo (2012). An epistemological look. Of the cartographic representation of the landscape. History and Geography Magazine Nº 27 / 2012. Recovered in: revistadehistoriaygeografia.ucsh.cl
2. Fallas, J. (2003). Cartographic and datum projections What are they and what are they for? TeleSig-National University. Costa Rica. Recovered at: ucv.altavoz.net
3. Fernández, PA (2017). Cartographic trends during the scientific period of the discipline: Analysis and systematization of its representations. From the world to the map. Universidad de Chile and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Recovered at: academia.edu
4. New York Times (2004). Arthur H. Robinson, the geographer who reinterpreted the world map. Printed edition of Tuesday, November 16. Recovered in: elpais.com
5. Robinson, Arthur H., Randall D. Sale, Joel Morrison, Phillip C. Muehrcke (1987) Elements of Cartography. Editorial Omega. Recovered in: docs.ufpr.br