Quote Originally Posted by cfds View Post
To beat Hai-Etlik: if your map is equirectangular (and it looks like it is) than the south pole would be mapped to the complete lower edge of the map and your pseudo Antarctica has to be stretched along the lower part of the map. Just compare it to some maps of Earth, like here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection.
A few other points:

This projection produces distinctive and unattractive distortion. Drawing the parallels all be the same length means higher latitudes get progressively more an more stretched out. If you draw things on the map without that distortion, it means you have drawn the land itself with the opposite distortion to compensate. So the land is all "pinched" together toward the poles.

The scale bar is also inappropriate. The scale varies depending on the latitude and the direction (This is an issue for and projection, the only way around it is to restrict the extent of the map) In case you were considering adding one, a compass rose would also be inappropriate as compass bearings vary with latitude too. (The Mercator projection is the only one that preserves bearings over a global extent)

This projection is rarely used for reference maps. It's ugly and doesn't preserve area or angles. It is sometimes used for thematic maps, though equal area projections tend to be better for that, and it's useful for source data that is going to be manipulated in certain ways (mapping onto a 3D sphere or converting to other projections for instance) though you want to avoid labels, textures, and fancy symbolization in that case as they will be distorted.