The Wiechel projection is an pseudoazimuthal, equal-areamap projection, and a novelty map presented by William H. Wiechel in 1879. When centered on the pole, it has semicircular meridians arranged in a pinwheel. Distortion of direction, shape, and distance is considerable in the edges.[1]
In polar aspect, the Wiechel projection can be expressed as so:[1]
The Wiechel can be obtained via an area-preserving polar transformation of the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.
In polar representation, the required transformation is of the form
where and are the polar coordinates of the Lambert and Wiechel maps, respectively.
The determinant of the Jacobian of the transformation is equal to unity, ensuring that it is area-preserving.
The Wiechel map thus serves as a simple example that equal-area projections of the sphere onto the disk are not unique, unlike conformal maps which follow the Riemann mapping theorem.