circle on the surface of the Earth centred at a point P at latitude and longitude . Since the point scale varies with position and direction the projection of the circle on the projection will be distorted. Tissot proved that, as long as the distortion is not too great, the circle will become an ellipse on the projection. In general the dimension, shape and orientation of the ellipse will change over the projection. Superimposing these distortion ellipses on the map projection conveys the way in which the point scale is changing over the map. The distortion ellipse is known as Tissot's indicatrix. The example shown here is the Winkel tripel projection, the standard projection for world maps made by the National Geographic Society. The minimum distortion is on the central meridian at latitudes of 30 degrees (North and South). (Other examples). Point scale for normal cylindrical projections of the sphere The key to a quantitative understanding of scale is to consider an infinitesimal element on the sphere. The figure shows a point P at latitude and longitude on the sphere. The point Q is at latitude and longitude . The lines PK and MQ are arcs of meridians of length where is the radius of the sphere and is in radian measure. The lines PM and KQ are arcs of parallel circles of length with in radian measure. In deriving a point property of the projection at P it suffices to take an infinitesimal element PMQK of the surface: in the limit of Q approaching P such an element tends to an infinitesimally small planar rectangle. Normal cylindrical projections of the sphere have and equal to a function of latitude only. Therefore, the infinitesimal element PMQK on the sphere projects to an infinitesimal element P'M'Q'K' which is an exact rectangle with a base and height . By comparing the elements on sphere and projection we can immediately deduce expressions for the scale factors on parallels and meridians. (The treatment of scale in a general direction may be found below.) parallel scale factor meridian scale factor Note that the parallel scale factor is independent of the definition of so it is the same for all normal cylindrical projections. It is useful to note that at latitude 30 degrees the parallel scale is at latitude 45 degrees the parallel scale is at latitude 60 degrees the parallel scale is at latitude 80