We all know, how crappy the common #Mercator projection for world #maps represents areas, inflating them with distance from the equator.

What many people don't know, is why this projection is still so popular:

The shortest path between two points on the globe, is a straight line on the map.

I reckon, this is useful.

In all other projections, the shortest paths are curves.

In #Maths, we say, the Mercator projection preserves angles, not areas.