What are three major types/classes of map projections?
Map projections can be grouped together in two basic ways; and a third characteristic, although it divides different ways of using the same projection, is sometimes considered important enough that different versions of the same projection varying only in this characteristic are given different names. The first characteristic is aspect. This identifies the basic layout of the projection. The most important projections are either cylindrical, conic, or azimuthal. A flat piece of paper can, without stretching, be bent into a cone or a cylinder, and in this way, it can touch a globe along an extended line; if left flat, it only touches the globe at a point. The basic mathematics of obtaining several important properties of maps is different in these aspects. There are other types of projection than these three basic types. A projection can be pseudocylindrical, which means that although the parallels of latitude are straight lines, the scale along them varies, so the meridians are no long
