The simple reason why QGIS can not draw these polygons is because some of the vertices are on the backside of the globe, and QGIS can not draw a closed polygon with the rest. The GDAL ogr2ogr function in the background is programmed to kick off the whole feature when such an error occurs. So you have two solutions: ---------- **Solution 1: Clip your polygons to the hemisphere** You need `Numerical Digitize` and `CAD Tools` plugin for that. - Set the project CRS to ortho projection - create a new point layer in the same projection - with the Numerical Digitize plugin, create the follwoing points: > x y > 6370000 0 > 0 6370000 > -6370000 0 > 0 6370000 (should also work with `Add delimited text layer`) - enable snapping on the point layer - with CAD Tools, select the first three points and create an arc from them - do the same for point 2 to 4 for the southern hemisphere - change project CRS to WGS84 - Save the CAD layer as WGS84 and add that to the canvas - Save your boundary layer also as WGS84 and add it to the canvas - convert the CAD lines to a new polygon layer - remove all except the polygon layers - clip the world boundaries to the CAD polygon layer - set project CRS back to ortho You should get this picture: ![world vector in ortho projection][1] ---------- **Solution 2: Convert your vector data to raster** - in Settings, disable `on-the-fly-reprojection` - Save your boundary layer also as WGS84 and add that to the canvas - Use `Raster -> Convert -> Rasterize` select x=360 and y=170 as dimensions for the raster (or n*360 and n*170) - Use `Raster -> Projection -> Reproject` to the ortho projection under another name and add it to the canvas. You will get some errors, but the rest of the raster will do. Don't bother that you see a grey rectangle - Rightclick on the raster layer -> Properties, Style tab - choose pseudo colours - in transparency tab, choose 0 for 100% transparency - Remove the first raster - set project CRS to ortho you should see the follwing picture: ![enter image description here][2] The same method works with rasters, as you can see in my avatar picture ;-) [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/nCGES.png [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/SA5K7.png