HISET Social Studies Practice 2026 - Free HISET Social Studies Practice Questions and Study Guide

The Mercator map is primarily utilized as a navigation tool due to its unique properties that allow for straight-line courses to be accurately represented on the map. This projection preserves angles and shapes, making it particularly useful for sailors and pilots who need to plot a course over long distances. The convenient straight lines of latitude and longitude help navigators maintain a constant compass bearing, which simplifies the process of traversing large bodies of water.

While the other uses listed, such as economic analysis, depicting political boundaries, or illustrating climate zones, can involve maps in general, they do not specifically leverage the strengths of the Mercator projection as effectively as navigation does. For instance, while political and economic maps can be created using various projections, a Mercator map's distortions, especially towards the poles, diminish its effectiveness for accurately representing these aspects.