It is time to 'Correct the Map'

by daverol • 11 months ago

24 40 11 months ago

bitparadox2• 11 months ago

I assume it's my colorblindness, but on mobile when I move that slider back and forth I just see blue outlines appear around the countries with no other distinguishable changes.

albert_e• 11 months ago

I am not color blind AFAIK, and I had to move the slider back and forth many times to try to understand what they are trying to show (even though I kind of knew what to expect).

Not the best visualization I should say.

The colors could have been better used to highlight the difference IMO.

alanbernstein2• 11 months ago

The colors and the sliders are both a bit extraneous to the point of the visualization, they're supposed to help but they kind of obscure the point.

For the northern landmasses, Greenland for example, the smaller outline is the equal-earth-projection, and the larger outline is the conventional Mercator projection. That's all there is to it.

bitparadox2• 11 months ago

I just viewed it on desktop, and here I can see the inner and outer outlines. On my phone I studied the diagram closely, but can't see the inner map outlines. Perhaps just a color profile thing on my phone.

Podrod• 11 months ago

Different projections have different uses. There's no one "correct" projection and anyway I've seen plenty of world maps using projections other than Mercator for quite a number of years now.

floppyd• 11 months ago

This is a very weird sounding pretense. Why does it matter if Africa in particular is bigger on the map compared to other countries and continents? How does area matter in general? It's not like we can infer anything useful from area comparisons. Also the map that is proposed (with the kinda-oval shape) is a map that I've seen a lot in school right next to now more common Mercator, and I'm from now here close to Africa.

bitmasher92• 11 months ago

It matters, especially for the perception of the less educated and less traveled (that happen to vote).

bpt35• 11 months ago

It matters how?

You think voters will increase support for Africa (whatever that means) if their perceived size of the continent is increased?

Zigurd2• 11 months ago

I hope it's not sticking my neck out too far to claim that a large majority of people think the Mercator projection is accurate, or they don't think about accuracy at all and take it for granted. For example, it makes Russia insanely enormous, and therefore more fearsome than it deserves.

bpt35• 11 months ago

Who is afraid of Russia based on the perceived size of Siberia?

bpt35• 11 months ago

Yes, this is one of the most bizarre arguments I've seen in some time.

Are Americans afraid of Canada or Greenland because it appears quite large on a Mercator map? Are we more likely to send aid to Asia because it is in fact a larger continent than Africa?

rsynnott5• 11 months ago

So, whatever about Africa, it does seem like maybe this distortion has real consequences.

Noted very stable genius Donald Trump: "I love maps. And I always said: 'Look at the size of this. It's massive. That should be part of the United States.'"

It's not totally implausible that the grossly oversized depiction of Greenland on Mercator (it's shown as being larger than the US) actually had some impact on his asinine desire to annex Greenland.

mockerell• 11 months ago

How does it fit into this xkcd?

https://xkcd.com/977/

rsynnott5• 11 months ago

Too new to be on that one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Earth_projection

Reason for being seems to be more or less "square accurate-area maps are ugly".

bryanlarsen2• 11 months ago

Like Robinson, but more so.

ertgbnm• 11 months ago

Everyone knows Greenland is the real proponent of the Mercator projection. Using the unfair influence of their massive perceived size on the map to unfairly inflate their importance in global politics and economics. It's time to put Greenland back in its place.

rsynnott5• 11 months ago

I am now wondering if Trump's Greenland obsession is because he thinks it's very bigly, due to Mercator (it appears larger than the US in a Mercator projection).

xnx• 11 months ago

You're not the only one who has wondered this: https://www.newsweek.com/mercator-projection-greenland-donal...

grues-dinner2• 11 months ago

Maybe they should put Roosevelt's massive 50-inch globe back in the Oval Office.

Assuming there's a place for more Big Balls in federal government?

readthenotes1• 11 months ago

He wants "the rare earths"

bitmasher92• 11 months ago

All of the maps are awful at a global levels. If you fix one problem another comes up.

I am be surprised at the number of maps we look at today given that often we are looking at digital screens that could display an interactive globe as easily as a distorted old map.

promiseofbeans• 11 months ago

Every 2D projection of a 3D surface will be wrong in some way. It's just a matter of which attributes you want yo compromise on and which you want to be accurate.

As I understand it, Mercator mostly preserves relative distances between continents, at the expense of distorting continent shape & size. This is useful for ocean-based trade route calculation, which was a major concern when Mercator was introduced.

Most regions these days have a standard projection they use that best represents their country and modern GIS software can trivially reproject data in whatever format your project is using.

For example, in NZ, New Zealand Transverse Mercator is normally used. We used to use New Zealand Map Grid, which better represents our country, but the govt decided to switch the official one to better integrate with overseas data & software. Modern software allows you to trivially use either though.

Tl;Dr: map projections matter, but different ones are better for different purposes in different places. The African Union can use whatever they want, and everyone else can use what is most useful for their maps. No need for everyone to use the same system when we can use both.

alanbernstein2• 11 months ago

This site's claim is that it is important to Africa for other regions to normalize using projections other than Mercator.

robinhouston2• 11 months ago

This sort of strident campaigning language is such an unhelpful framing in which to discuss the relative merits of different map projections.

Every world map must trade off between different types of distortion. There's no principled reason to demand a map perfectly respect relative area at the expense of other characteristics.

Personally for general world maps I typically prefer so-called ‘compromise’ pseudocylindrical projections such as Robinson, which try to minimise all types of distortion as much as possible, but even the much-maligned Mercator has its place.

Zigurd2• 11 months ago

By some perfectly objective measure maybe it's more important to point out that white Jesus is a racist trope. But it's not a small issue either.

bryanlarsen2• 11 months ago

P.S. The "Equal Earth" projection they're promoting is very similar to the Robinson projection you prefer.

robinhouston2• 11 months ago

It’s similar in the sense that it’s a pseudocylindrical projection. Unlike Robinson it opts for a strict equal-area property at the expense of less accurate direction and distance. In that respect it’s more similar to Eckert IV. Another interesting pseudocylindrical projection is Winkel Tripel, which explicitly tries to balance three types of distortion.

I’m not objecting to the Equal Earth projection, which is a perfectly respectable contribution to the pseudocylindrical repertoire, but to the language this site is using to promote it.

zveyaeyv3sfye• 11 months ago

I like the idea of questioning status quo, but not so sure this makes a whole lot of sense in 2025.

Meerkartor was developed to project a 3D GLOBE onto a flat surface.

We already have non-meerkartor projections such as the classic globe that should be found in every class-room, and modern digital variations such as Google Earth.

And the meerkartor projections we do use:

In USA, the meerkartor projection centers on the USA.

In europe, the meerkartor projection centers on Europe.

And in asia, guess where the center is?

Why can't Africa just start using their own projection too, with their preferences?

bitrates• 11 months ago

Why are we changing maps? (from The West Wing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI

natebc• 11 months ago

This episode of The West Wing was exactly what came to my mind when reading the headline.

"But you can't do that." "Why not?" "Because it's freaking me out."

Such an entertaining show.

grues-dinner2• 11 months ago

While we're at it, why not move the default centre line so that it bisects one of these circles: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/vastwz/the_smalles...

And you can definitely do that because a large proportion of maps sold in Asia do actually have Asia more or less in the middle.

rsynnott5• 11 months ago

Fun animated gif showing just _how_ distortive Mercator is. In particular, look at Greenland! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection#/media/Fil...

throw3930404• 11 months ago

We also need to decolonize contimental US! All white men must leave occupied land, and go to reserves in desert! Rest of the country will finaly live in harmony and socialism!

jvdvegt• 11 months ago

Very annoying that I cannot see the part of the site (something like 30 pixels) in Firefox on Android.

bpt35• 11 months ago

Is there a single argument in favor of this claim that is backed up in the references on this site? It doesn't look like it to me. The only secondary citation is on a website that is down and doesn't seem to be peer reviewed.

olivergregory• 11 months ago

Calls it "correct the map", manages to write "Belguim" instead of "Belgium".

satisfice• 11 months ago

This is a projection favored by colonizers, because once people in power realize how big Africa is, they will want to conquer it.

It is time to 'Correct the Map'

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