Authagraph projection

Imagine you have a globe ball, that shows Earth like it is in real life. Like we see when we look at a photo of the planet. Now imagine you want to show the Earth on a flat map, like a piece of paper, but you can't just make it into a square, because then it would not look right.

So, people came up with different ways to turn the round Earth into flat maps. Authagraph projection is one of these ways. What it does is to divide the globe into several triangles of different sizes and shapes, and then fold them in a specific way so that they fit on a flat sheet of paper, without making the countries look too big or small, or distorted in shape.

Let's say you play a game of darts and you draw a board, that’s the earth. Now you throw darts at it to carve it up into pieces, but instead of cleaning up the holes around the darts, you just neatly fold it up, so it becomes whole again, but in a different shape on a piece of paper.

This method takes into consideration the fact that Earth is a curved surface, and it does a good job of showing a more realistic representation of it on a flat surface. Authagraph projection is widely used in creating maps, especially for things like navigation, weather projections, and geology. It helps us to better understand our planet by showing it in a flat, easy-to-read format.