The Russian "11 time zones" fallacy. At the north pole you can get 24 time zones into one square meter.
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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I'm not sure I've ever seen a Mercator map except in internet content complaining about them
Have you used Google Maps? Or OpenStreetMap?
Huh.
Well I'll be damned! I actually thought Google zoomed out to a globe but that's only on the satellite layer.
At least those tools actually are for navigation, not for showing the entire world.
I wish we would stop stretching land masses and start stretching oceans in basic maps. We don't need the Mercator for naval navigation in our day to day lives, but knowing the real size of Russia and Africa would affect our basic view of the world.
If stretching is ok, then why not go all the way.
If you dislike stretching, you can always cut instead. That's why we also have a series of octahedral butterfly maps.
If that's not polyhedral enough, you could try the Dymaxion projection instead.
Thanks, I hate you.
Silly Mercator projection
No, one kilometer in Africa is about 60 % shorter than in russia.
This. It's closer to the equator, so they are rotating faster which means the kilometers get shorter. Don't you just love science?