How to Pick the Right Map for the Job

There's no single 'best' map — there's only the right map for what you're trying to do. Here's a simple way to decide: first ask yourself what you actually need the map to get right.

Making a map that colors countries by something, like population, wealth, or how many pandas live there? You need true size, so reach for an equal-area map like Equal Earth or Gall-Peters. Otherwise a big-looking country might just be a big-looking country, not an actually-big one.

Steering a ship or plane, or drawing a straight compass path? You need true directions, so reach for a conformal map like Mercator.

Making a poster or a classroom wall map of the whole world, where it just needs to look right and nothing needs to be measured exactly? Reach for a compromise map like Robinson or Winkel Tripel.

Focusing on one pole, or one city, or how far things are from one specific spot? Reach for an azimuthal map like azimuthal equidistant or orthographic — they're built around a single center point.

When in doubt, Equal Earth is a solid default — it's fair about size, which is usually the thing people misjudge most on a world map.