Mercator projections are widely used for navigation but are not advisable beyond 70 degrees latitude because of distortion.

• A. Lambert Equal-Area Projection
• B. Goode's Homolosine
• C. Stereographic Projection
• D. Mercator Projections

Answer: (D)

Mercator projection is prized for navigation because it preserves shapes locally, so a line of constant bearing (a rhumb line) appears as a straight line on the map, simplifying course plotting. But the trade-off is that scale grows without bound as you move toward the poles. The scale factor increases with latitude (it’s proportional to 1/cos(latitude)), so distances and areas become wildly distorted near 90°. That makes charts unreliable for true measurements beyond about 70° latitude, which is why this projection isn’t advisable there. The other projections have different distortion characteristics—Lambert Equal-Area keeps area at the expense of shape, Goode’s Homolosine prioritizes equal-area representation with interruptions, and the Stereographic projection is very good for angles near the center but distorts far from it—so they don’t explain the specific navigation advantage paired with polar distortion in the same way.