ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Transverse Mercator projection

Okay kiddo, so let's say you want to make a map of the world. But the world is round, and it's hard to make a flat map out of a round thing. That's where something called a projection comes in.

A projection is like taking a picture of the round earth and making it flat. But there are different ways to do this, and one of them is called the Transverse Mercator projection.

It's like taking a big piece of paper and wrapping it around the earth so that it touches a line that goes from the North Pole down to the South Pole. This line is called the central meridian.

Then you draw a bunch of other lines, called meridians and parallels, on the map to help you figure out where everything is. It's kind of like a giant grid on the map.

But the cool thing about the Transverse Mercator projection is that it makes things in the north and south parts of the map look bigger than they really are. This is really helpful for people who are trying to navigate or measure things in locations that are far away from the equator.

So there you have it, the Transverse Mercator projection is a way to make a flat map of the world by wrapping a piece of paper around it and drawing a grid of lines on it, which makes things in certain parts of the map look bigger.