Mercator projection is nowadays hated by many people. A movement started (at least) in the 1970's by Arno Peters. However it has unique properties that other projections miss. Those properties are useful not only in surveying (big scales), but also in worldwide data representation (small scales).

This talk will explain the pros and cons of the Mercator projection and compare it to other projections. It will explain how to measure distances in any projection. I hope it will give hints to decide which projection to use depending on the purpose of the map.