Why do maps have distortion?

Answer 1

Try taking the peel of an orange and laying it out flat so that all the edges meet up - you can't!

Well the earth is also a ball and when you try and represent the curved surface on a flat piece of paper it would behave like the orange peel. To make a flat map you have to make a projection of the earths round surface (there are a number of ways of doing this) and this introduces a distortion.

Answer 2

Maps have distortions as they are drawn on a flat surface while the earth is spherical i.e it flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator.Due to this the maximum distortions occur at regions surrounding the poles while the distortions comparatively are lesser at the equatorial regions .