Relating to the making of maps or to the art and science of map-making.
From cartography combined with the adjective suffix -ic. The term emerged in academic usage during the 19th century as cartography became a formal discipline.
Cartographic projections (ways of flattening the round Earth onto flat maps) are mathematically brilliant but impossible—every map lies in some way, which is why map projections are still debated by geographers who want to show the world 'most fairly.'
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