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Nissan map wrong11/19/2022 The resulting shape is sometimes referred to as an “orange peel map”.Īnother evolution in cartography was the Dymaxion map, invented by Buckminster Fuller and patented in 1946. John Paul Goode’s attempt, known as the Goode Homolosine Projection, took this concept a step further by adding interruptions at strategic locations to help reduce the distortion of continents. The Mollweide projection has inspired many other attempts at a user-friendly equal area map. In 1805, mathematician and astronomer, Karl Mollweide, created a namesake projection that trades accuracy of angles and shape for accuracy of proportion. The Earth is depicted as a globe at further zoom levels, sidestepping map projection issues completely and displaying the world as it actually is: round. Boston public schools, for example, recently switched to the Gall-Peters projection, which more accurately depicts the true size of landmasses.Īs well, Google, whose map app is used by approximately one billion people per month, took the bold step of using different projections for different purposes in 2018. Growing awareness of map distortion is translating into concrete change. – Salvatore Natoli, Educational Affairs Director, AAGĪ prime example of this argument is the “True Size of Africa” graphic, which demonstrated to millions of people just how big the continent is. In our society we unconsciously equate size with importance and even power. As well, the amount of territory a country occupies is often correlated with power and access to natural resources, and map distortions can have the effect of inadvertently diminishing nations closer to the equator. Critics of the map-and similar projections-suggest that distortion reinforces a sense of colonialist superiority. Though Mercator’s map was never intended for use as the default wall map in schools around the world, it has shaped the worldviews of billions of people. In reality, Greenland is about fourteen times smaller than Africa. Greenland is the world’s largest island, but looking at its hyper-exaggerated depiction in the map below, you’d be forgiven for wondering why it isn’t a stand-alone continent. Comparing the landmasses on the same latitude as Canada helps put sizes into perspective. Here is an “ at scale” look at Canada, the United States, and Mexico.Īfrica, South Asia, and South America all appear much smaller in relation to countries further from the equator.Īnd from a North American perspective, countries such as Australia and Indonesia appear much smaller than they actually are. When Antarctica is excluded (as it often is), Canada and Russia’s visual share of landmass jumps to about 40%.Ĭanada is the second largest country in the world, but not by much. Visually speaking, Canada and Russia appear to take up approximately 25% of the Earth’s landmass, when in reality they occupy a mere 5%. One trade-off for the utility of Mercator’s map is that it pumps up the sizes of Europe and North America. That said, in this projection style, the sizes of landmasses become increasingly distorted the further away from the equator they get. In modern times, this is particularly useful since the Earth can be depicted in a seamless way in online mapping applications. The new map was well-suited to nautical navigation since every line on the sphere is a constant course, or loxodrome. In 1569, the great cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, created a revolutionary new map based on a cylindrical projection. Used just about everywhere, from classroom wall maps to navigation apps, the Mercator projection is the way most of humanity recognizes the position and size of Earth’s continents. Unfortunately, billions of people around the world have a skewed perception of the true size of countries thanks to a cartographic technique called the Mercator projection. Maps shape our understanding of the world-and in an increasingly interconnected and global economy, this geographic knowledge is more important than ever.
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