Cylindrical projection

A cylinder is like a paper tube. Imagine you rolled up a piece of paper and made a tube. If you draw a map on the outside of the tube and then cut it along one side and spread it out on a flat surface, you'd end up with a flat map that doesn't have any wrinkles or distortions.

That's what a cylindrical projection is! It's a way of taking the curved surface of a globe (like the Earth) and stretching it out onto a flat piece of paper or screen. By wrapping the globe's surface around a cylinder and projecting it onto a flat surface, a cylindrical projection minimizes distortion and makes it possible to show the entire globe at once.

Cylindrical projections are often used for maps because they are easy to draw and read, and they're good for showing features that run east-west, like the equator. However, because they stretch the poles out into lines, certain parts of the map will still be distorted, especially near the top and bottom. There are different types of cylindrical projections that try to balance accuracy with aesthetics depending on what the map will be used for.