robinson

Robinson Projection

Classification

Pseudocylindrical

Identifier

robinson

Graticule

Central Meridian: Straight line 0.51 as long as the Equator.

Other Meridians: Equally spaced, resemble elliptical arcs and

are concave toward the central meridian.

Parallels: Straight parallel lines, perpendicular to the central

meridian. Spacing is equal between the 38º parallels, decreasing

outside these limits.

Poles: Lines 0.53 as long as the Equator.

Symmetry: About the central meridian or the Equator.

Features

Scale is true along the 38º parallels and is constant along

any parallel or between any pair of parallels equidistant from the

Equator. It is not free of distortion at any point, but distortion

is very low within about 45º of the center and along the Equator.

This projection is not equal-area, conformal, or equidistant; however,

it is considered to look right for world maps,

and hence is widely used by Rand McNally, the National Geographic

Society, and others. This feature is achieved through the use of tabular

coordinates rather than mathematical formulae for the graticules.

Parallels

For this projection, only one standard parallel is specified.

The other standard parallel is the same latitude with the opposite

sign. The standard parallel is by definition fixed at 38º.

Remarks

This projection was presented by Arthur H. Robinson in 1963, and is also

called the Orthophanic projection, which means right

appearing.

This implementation of the Robinson projection is applicable only for

coordinates that are referenced to a sphere. If you want to project coordinates

that are referenced to an ellipsoid, using the projfwd or projinv functions, then create a

projcrs object instead of a map projection structure. You can

create a projcrs object for the Robinson projection using the

ESRI authority code 54030. For example:

projcrs(54030,'Authority','ESRI').

Mapping Toolbox™ uses a different implementation of the Robinson projection for

displaying coordinates on map axes than for projecting coordinates using the

projfwd or projinv function. These

implementations may produce differing results.

Example

landareas = shaperead('landareas.shp','UseGeoCoords',true);

axesm ('robinson', 'Frame', 'on', 'Grid', 'on');

geoshow(landareas,'FaceColor',[1 1 .5],'EdgeColor',[.6 .6 .6]);

tissot;

Introduced before R2006a