The Robinson, Winkel Tripel, and Compromise Projections

Rather than mathematically enforcing one property such as conformality or equal area, a compromise projection deliberately allows small, evenly balanced distortions of several properties at once, aiming for a result that looks visually natural across the whole world map rather than provably correct in any single respect. The best-known example is the Robinson projection, designed in 1963 by American geographer Arthur H. Robinson at the request of the commercial map publisher Rand McNally. Robinson built the projection not from a closed mathematical formula but from a table of coordinates chosen by eye for their pleasing appearance at twenty-two intervals of latitude, interpolating between them, a method Robinson himself described as working backward from the desired look of the map rather than forward from a single preserved geometric property.