Conic projections use a cone (hence it's name) to project a region of the earth.

To show a region for which the greatest extent is from east to west in the temperate zones, conic projections are usually preferable to cylindrical projections.

Normal conic projections are distinguished by the use of arcs of concentric circles for parallesl of latitude and equally spaced straight radii of these circles for meridians. The angles between the meridians on the map are smaller than the actual differences in longitude. The circular arcs may or may not be equally spaced, depending on the projections. The polyconic projections and the oblique conic projections have characteristcs different from these.

There are three important classes of conic projections:

@author Rutger Bezema @author last edited by: $Author: rbezema $ @version $Revision: 10829 $, $Date: 2007-03-20 10:15:15 +0100 (Di, 20 Mrz 2007)$