![]() Google, whose map app is used by approximately 150 million people per month, took the bold step of using different projections for different purposes in 2018. This includes in the classroom, where young minds are first learning about geography and forming opinions on the relationships between countries. In the GIF above, Scandinavian countries no longer loom imposingly over their European neighbors, and Canada deflates to a size similar to the United States.ĭespite inaccurate visual features-or perhaps because of them-the Mercator projection has achieved widespread adoption around the world. This visualization also highlights how distorted neighboring countries can look in Mercator projection. ![]() The continent of Africa takes a much more prominent position in this new, correctly-scaled map. Greenland, which appears as a massive icy landmass in Mercator projection, shrinks way down. Visually speaking, Canada and Russia appear to take up approximately 25% of the Earth’s surface, when in reality they occupy a mere 5%.Īs the animated GIF below-created by Reddit user, neilrkaye – demonstrates, northern nations such as Canada and Russia have been artificially “pumped up” in the minds of many people around the world. Mercator’s map inadvertently also pumps up the sizes of Europe and North America. The vast majority of us aren’t using paper maps to chart our course across the ocean anymore, so critics of the Mercator projection argue that the continued use of this style of map gives users a warped sense of the true size of countries-particularly in the case of the African continent. ![]() ![]() 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. ![]()
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