Whats a mercator? ... from wiki ... "The Mercator map became the standard map projection for nautical navigation because of its ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines or loxodromes, as straight segments that conserve the angles with the meridians. Although the linear scale is equal in all directions around any point, thus preserving the angles and the shapes of small objects (making it a conformal map projection), the Mercator projection distorts the size of objects as the latitude increases from the Equator to the poles, where the scale becomes infinite." (loxodromes .. distorts .. "conformal" ... ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection
Whats an azimuth? ... again from Wiki .. "The azimuthal equidistant map (projects that) .. all points on the map are at proportionally correct distances from the center point, and that all points on the map are at the correct azimuth (direction) from the center point. A useful application for this type of projection is a polar projection which shows all meridians (lines of longitude) as straight, with distances from the pole represented correctly. The flag of the United Nations contains an example of a polar azimuthal equidistant projection." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuthal_equidistant_projection (proportionally correct ... distances from the pole represented correctly .. got it)
Look closely at Greenland in the mutilpe versions (of these two mapping methodologies). Did you know the Mercator Projection Map "distorts" the proportions of Greenland as being nearly EQUAL to the size of Africa (remember .. mercator projection distorts the proportions, as the latitude increases from the Equator ), but in fact it is 14 TIMES smaller. Drag, drop, and overlay any county over another to visualize its TRUE proportions here .. Greenland and India are especially fascinating: https://thetruesize.com/