It is hard to represent our spherical world on a flat piece of paper. Cartographers use something called a "projection" to morph the globe into a 2D map. The most popular of these is the Mercator projection.
Every map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. One of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (US, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent). On the Mercator projection, Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Greenland is 0.8 million sq. miles and Africa is 11.6 million sq. miles—nearly 14 and a half times larger.
This app was created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice It was inspired by an episode of The West Wing and an infographic by Kai Krause entitled "The True Size of Africa". We hope teachers will use it to show their students just how big the world actually is.
I appreciate that it allows me to select US states because I have a much better sense of the size of my state (having driven all over it) than I do the US as a whole. Kind of a shame it doesn't...
I appreciate that it allows me to select US states because I have a much better sense of the size of my state (having driven all over it) than I do the US as a whole. Kind of a shame it doesn't appear to support non-US states/provinces/territories/etc. though.
Two standouts to me are how much bigger Crimea and the Nile Delta are than I thought. It's also interesting to me how much the Mercator projection impacts US states. Never really occurred to me how it might impact state sizes (Alaska aside, since it's way up there), just country sizes.
I think one of the more interesting things about this is how you can observe how the equal-area projection they use to implement this doesn't preserve angle/orientation by moving a country...
I think one of the more interesting things about this is how you can observe how the equal-area projection they use to implement this doesn't preserve angle/orientation by moving a country north/south (especially the US or Canada due to their large flat border)
I appreciate that it allows me to select US states because I have a much better sense of the size of my state (having driven all over it) than I do the US as a whole. Kind of a shame it doesn't appear to support non-US states/provinces/territories/etc. though.
Two standouts to me are how much bigger Crimea and the Nile Delta are than I thought. It's also interesting to me how much the Mercator projection impacts US states. Never really occurred to me how it might impact state sizes (Alaska aside, since it's way up there), just country sizes.
I think one of the more interesting things about this is how you can observe how the equal-area projection they use to implement this doesn't preserve angle/orientation by moving a country north/south (especially the US or Canada due to their large flat border)
Wasn't sure which group was best for this, please feel free to move if needed!
I think the one that struck me is that California and Egypt are just about the same length, North to South.