I've seen a lot of comparisons of the Mercator projection vs. others over the years, and I've played around quite a bit with The True Size Of..., but I still really enjoyed this collection of a...
I've seen a lot of comparisons of the Mercator projection vs. others over the years, and I've played around quite a bit with The True Size Of..., but I still really enjoyed this collection of a bunch of surprising geographical facts. I hope ~travel was the right place to share it — mods feel free to move if you disagree.
Thank you for sharing this! I’m not a map enthusiast, but I love reading these kinds of things every once in a while. The XKDC about maps was the first time I really realized how broken western...
Thank you for sharing this! I’m not a map enthusiast, but I love reading these kinds of things every once in a while. The XKDC about maps was the first time I really realized how broken western maps are, but this takes it to a whole new level.
I wonder why, with maps having such an important role in our everyday lives, we still use maps that are so obviously wrong? Kids here grow up with such a distorted view of what the country/continent/world really looks like.
I think the biggest reason is that people are used to seeing what they have seen for their whole lives and any accurate maps look weird and wrong to them so they think the more accurate maps are...
with maps having such an important role in our everyday lives, we still use maps that are so obviously wrong
I think the biggest reason is that people are used to seeing what they have seen for their whole lives and any accurate maps look weird and wrong to them so they think the more accurate maps are incorrect.
But the Earth is 3D. Flat maps always have tradeoffs. The Mercator map is actually one of the best maps to use if you are using it for navigation purposes: a straight line on the map will show the correct direction to go to get to your destination. This is not true at all for maps that accurately show the size of regions.
I work with spatial data/GIS for a living. The psychological consequences of South-Up maps might seem a bit far-fetched but I think there is something to it. I think humans are not very good at reading maps. Our brains are better at recognizing faces or other patterns like that. I don't think accurate and unbiased map reading can be casually taught... I'm not even sure if it is possible to do. If you already have a destination in mind, sure. Navigation maps are great. But for looking at a map to decide where to travel, where to invest, where to live, where to build... I think humans are much better at reading sorted tables of information. There's a lot of really interesting spatial data that can be used to supplement/enrich the table of data. And leave the map-browsing to the very end, for fine-tuning decisions while constraints are well-defined.
It really is interesting how unfamiliar the map looks when it’s flipped, even when it’s using a familiar projection! I think your comparison to facial recognition is apt. It reminds me of this...
I work with spatial data/GIS for a living. The psychological consequences of South-Up maps might seem a bit far-fetched but I think there is something to it. I think humans are not very good at reading maps. Our brains are better at recognizing faces or other patterns like that.
It really is interesting how unfamiliar the map looks when it’s flipped, even when it’s using a familiar projection! I think your comparison to facial recognition is apt. It reminds me of this upside-down face illusion. It doesn’t seem like simply rotating an image would affect our perception of it, but it really does!
And that’s not even mentioning the “up” and “down” biases the Wikipedia page talks about. That adds a whole other layer of complexity to the matter. I agree, I don’t think it’s possible to teach people to get past these cognitive limitations. It kind of breaks my brain just trying to make sense of what’s happening here.
The Mercator projection in particular is useful because it has this feature called conformality, meaning that, at medium-small scales, it preserves shapes and angles perfectly and you cannot do...
The Mercator projection in particular is useful because it has this feature called conformality, meaning that, at medium-small scales, it preserves shapes and angles perfectly and you cannot do that and also preserve area. This is so important for Google Maps because it means that, when you zoom into your city (or *any* city in the world map) right angles look like right angles and cities and states aren't slanted. Someone made a zoomable version of the Goode Homolosine projection and if you zoom into certain cities like Tokyo or Anchorage you will see the map is nearly unusable because everything is so slanted. Because it is a conformal map, Mercator prevents this while also being cylindrical, meaning that the cardinal directions are the same everywhere and that the projection is overall rectangular, meaning that you can simply put a mercator world map next to itself and have it seamlessly transition from one side of the world to another, thus making it very good for navigation.
That being said, I think people's use of Google maps gives people the impression that Mercator is the only map that people ever use which I think is grossly exaggerated, people use/see Robinson, Equirectangular, Mollweide, Azimuthal (UN-like) and Conic maps just as, if not more often than Mercator, although basically all maps that aren't explicitly equal-area like Mollweide expand areas further from the equator, which turns out to just be the global north and antarctica.
2 (other) sites I would recommend for viewing various types of map projections and how/what they distort are map-projections.net for looking at and comparing a lot of different maps and Jason...
2 (other) sites I would recommend for viewing various types of map projections and how/what they distort are map-projections.net for looking at and comparing a lot of different maps and Jason Davies' Map Projection Transitions for interactivity. For viewing Mercator and Area+Length distortion, I think map-projection's Mercator vs Mollweide and Mercator vs Sinusoidal are the best way to see the extent of Mercator's distortion in these aspects, and also to see what the world even looks like when you make a map that translates land area to map area precisely. I think the most striking comparisons are by looking at the map comparisons where the projections are scaled to be equally wide, the Mercator projection is roughly square, while most equivalent map projections are around twice as tall as they are wide while also being widest at the equator and tapering off towards the poles, meaning that, when the equator is kept at constant scale, the mercator map is overall much bigger than the equal-area maps despite being very similar to them near the equator, with all that extra area going to more poleward locations and the countries located there.
Does it? I didn’t pick up on that when I was reading it the first time. Just thought it was commentary on what constitutes “the first world” and it’s more or less true I think. I see what you’re...
Does it? I didn’t pick up on that when I was reading it the first time. Just thought it was commentary on what constitutes “the first world” and it’s more or less true I think. I see what you’re saying and I think it could be valid but from what I can tell the author doesn’t have a pro-Russia bias or a least isn’t amplifying those messages intentionally (as I wasn’t by sharing the link).
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were sharing propaganda on purpose, I also don't know the OOP so I'll take your word for it. For context, back when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, you know...
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were sharing propaganda on purpose, I also don't know the OOP so I'll take your word for it.
For context, back when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, you know how western countries started to sanction and condemn Russia? The russian war supporters started to poke fun at how the international community was just the western alligned countries. This map and similar were usually shared on social media by them; that's why I picked up on it.
Maybe this is one of those cases that it's only propaganda if you have the necessary context, a sort of dog wistling.
I've seen a lot of comparisons of the Mercator projection vs. others over the years, and I've played around quite a bit with The True Size Of..., but I still really enjoyed this collection of a bunch of surprising geographical facts. I hope ~travel was the right place to share it — mods feel free to move if you disagree.
Random aside, I've previously seen the True Size of Africa map he includes, but I never noticed the byline on it is Kai Krause. That's a name I was just googling a couple days ago after this Tildes thread on "cool" UIs. I had a nice jog down memory lane remembering some of the novel interfaces he came up with in the '90s. Interesting guy, I wonder what he's up to these days.
Thank you for sharing this! I’m not a map enthusiast, but I love reading these kinds of things every once in a while. The XKDC about maps was the first time I really realized how broken western maps are, but this takes it to a whole new level.
I wonder why, with maps having such an important role in our everyday lives, we still use maps that are so obviously wrong? Kids here grow up with such a distorted view of what the country/continent/world really looks like.
I think the biggest reason is that people are used to seeing what they have seen for their whole lives and any accurate maps look weird and wrong to them so they think the more accurate maps are incorrect.
But the Earth is 3D. Flat maps always have tradeoffs. The Mercator map is actually one of the best maps to use if you are using it for navigation purposes: a straight line on the map will show the correct direction to go to get to your destination. This is not true at all for maps that accurately show the size of regions.
I work with spatial data/GIS for a living. The psychological consequences of South-Up maps might seem a bit far-fetched but I think there is something to it. I think humans are not very good at reading maps. Our brains are better at recognizing faces or other patterns like that. I don't think accurate and unbiased map reading can be casually taught... I'm not even sure if it is possible to do. If you already have a destination in mind, sure. Navigation maps are great. But for looking at a map to decide where to travel, where to invest, where to live, where to build... I think humans are much better at reading sorted tables of information. There's a lot of really interesting spatial data that can be used to supplement/enrich the table of data. And leave the map-browsing to the very end, for fine-tuning decisions while constraints are well-defined.
It really is interesting how unfamiliar the map looks when it’s flipped, even when it’s using a familiar projection! I think your comparison to facial recognition is apt. It reminds me of this upside-down face illusion. It doesn’t seem like simply rotating an image would affect our perception of it, but it really does!
And that’s not even mentioning the “up” and “down” biases the Wikipedia page talks about. That adds a whole other layer of complexity to the matter. I agree, I don’t think it’s possible to teach people to get past these cognitive limitations. It kind of breaks my brain just trying to make sense of what’s happening here.
The Mercator projection in particular is useful because it has this feature called conformality, meaning that, at medium-small scales, it preserves shapes and angles perfectly and you cannot do that and also preserve area. This is so important for Google Maps because it means that, when you zoom into your city (or *any* city in the world map) right angles look like right angles and cities and states aren't slanted. Someone made a zoomable version of the Goode Homolosine projection and if you zoom into certain cities like Tokyo or Anchorage you will see the map is nearly unusable because everything is so slanted. Because it is a conformal map, Mercator prevents this while also being cylindrical, meaning that the cardinal directions are the same everywhere and that the projection is overall rectangular, meaning that you can simply put a mercator world map next to itself and have it seamlessly transition from one side of the world to another, thus making it very good for navigation.
That being said, I think people's use of Google maps gives people the impression that Mercator is the only map that people ever use which I think is grossly exaggerated, people use/see Robinson, Equirectangular, Mollweide, Azimuthal (UN-like) and Conic maps just as, if not more often than Mercator, although basically all maps that aren't explicitly equal-area like Mollweide expand areas further from the equator, which turns out to just be the global north and antarctica.
2 (other) sites I would recommend for viewing various types of map projections and how/what they distort are map-projections.net for looking at and comparing a lot of different maps and Jason Davies' Map Projection Transitions for interactivity. For viewing Mercator and Area+Length distortion, I think map-projection's Mercator vs Mollweide and Mercator vs Sinusoidal are the best way to see the extent of Mercator's distortion in these aspects, and also to see what the world even looks like when you make a map that translates land area to map area precisely. I think the most striking comparisons are by looking at the map comparisons where the projections are scaled to be equally wide, the Mercator projection is roughly square, while most equivalent map projections are around twice as tall as they are wide while also being widest at the equator and tapering off towards the poles, meaning that, when the equator is kept at constant scale, the mercator map is overall much bigger than the equal-area maps despite being very similar to them near the equator, with all that extra area going to more poleward locations and the countries located there.
Pity that it ends with russian propaganda at the end, but other than that this was an interesting link to read, thanks for the share OP
Does it? I didn’t pick up on that when I was reading it the first time. Just thought it was commentary on what constitutes “the first world” and it’s more or less true I think. I see what you’re saying and I think it could be valid but from what I can tell the author doesn’t have a pro-Russia bias or a least isn’t amplifying those messages intentionally (as I wasn’t by sharing the link).
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you were sharing propaganda on purpose, I also don't know the OOP so I'll take your word for it.
For context, back when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, you know how western countries started to sanction and condemn Russia? The russian war supporters started to poke fun at how the international community was just the western alligned countries. This map and similar were usually shared on social media by them; that's why I picked up on it.
Maybe this is one of those cases that it's only propaganda if you have the necessary context, a sort of dog wistling.
I think looking at population (Valeriepieris circle) and resource extraction (dependency theory) is a bit more convincing than comparing country sizes