Mollweide projection
Proyección de Mollweide
- Date
- 1805 · confidence high
- Place
- Leipzig, Germany
- Credited to
- Karl Mollweide
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
An equal-area pseudocylindrical map projection, used mainly for world and celestial-sphere maps, that sacrifices angle and shape accuracy for correct area proportions. Popularised in 1857 by Jacques Babinet under the name homalographic projection.
Published by mathematician and astronomer Karl Mollweide in 1805; also known as the Babinet or homalographic projection.
What it led to
- thematic world maps requiring correct areas
- 19th-century star atlases using the 'homolographic' variant
- the basis of later hybrid projections such as Goode's homolosine