593
In other news: Trump doesn't want Greenland anymore...
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2026
593 points (95.8% liked)
interestingasfuck
9743 readers
342 users here now
For exceptionally interesting content
Rules:
- Posts must be interesting
- Posts must be based in reality
- No hateful content
- No harmful content
- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
The title falsly implies that mercator is "incorrect". Mercator is an angle preserving projection, meaning all angles are true to real life. The "equal earth" map is an area preserving projection, meaning it retains the true area of countries, but in return the angles are all wrong. This makes equal earth unsuitable for navigation for example.
It is also wrong to imply that this is some kind of new development. This was very much known all along, mercator simply became the default because world maps used to be primarily for navigation.
We had some cartography classes in the university and since then I cant accept anything other than 3D globe or parts of it.
I don't fly an airplane or sail a ship to need straight lines.
Yes, all of the 2D projections distort too much. When possible, half of the globe should be shown, from whichever angle is most relevant. Many people have no idea what a map centered on the North Pole looks like, and how close the countries in the northern hemisphere are to each other.
The title is incomplete, but then again the title is already pretty big without being "The UN has backed replacing the 500-year-old Mercator projection with maps that conform to the actual surface areas of the continents, including the Equal Earth cartographic projection, were appropriate"
load more comments
(33 replies)
All world maps are inaccurate except a globe. Equal Earth still shows distortions when you move closer to the poles. Instead of stretching along the latitude it now compresses along the longitude
Dymaxian is a pretty good one for showing sizes, useless for navigation though
Every few years this comes up again, and every time some nonsense about colonialism or whatever is brought up.
There is no "true" size or "true" shape on a 2D projection of Earth's very 3D surface. We used the one projection for so long because of how coastal shapes don't get bent way out of proportion, but like with any projection, messes with the other aspects.
Rather than making spicy click bait titles every so often about the "true" projection of the Earth, how about we teach kids at school what it takes to project something 3D on a 2D surface?
And just use a fucking globe!
As a neurodivergent map person, I'm over-aware of the difficulties of map projection. And I agree that simply calling this new projection 'accurate' is misleading
But at the same time, the use of the Mercator as the standard default map in situations that have nothing to do with ocean navigation for literally hundreds of years is absolutely a reflection of the relative power of the Global North, and can't be dismissed as 'nonsense about colonialism'
load more comments
(31 replies)
I mean, before the advent of GPS, ships at sea got a "fix" of their position by taking two measurements: north/south latitude (via a sextant when the sun was visible) and east/west longitude (via a set of very accurate clocks that showed the time in Greenwich England, which could be easily compared to the time aboard ship). Mercator maps are just a grid showing where all the land is as a function of these two measurements on the X and Y axes. Any other projection would have just meant a lot more work figuring out where shit was, which is why Mercator became "the" map. It had absolutely nothing to do with any attempt to make Europe appear dominant -- Europe's dominance when these maps came into existence was too obvious and unquestioned to need any parlor tricks.
load more comments
(16 replies)
Woo hoo! I'm going to hike across Siberia now. It is so small.
I don't believe you
Just another non issue. I can't believe anyone other than cartographers really care. If you want accurate, get one of those blow up globes. Or most of the online mapping sites that turn into a globe when you zoom out far enough.
I'm sure that was high on the list of demands for African counties, kept in a debt trap and exploited.
Best we can offer is changing a map.
I'm so sick of this shit. You want an accurate map? Buy a globe. There is no accurate flat map projections. All are wrong. Different projections have different flaws and serve different purposes.
load more comments
(17 replies)
How will we deal with the spaces between the countries that will form? Especially the one under Russia
We call the Dutch, they'll fill it up.
Gekoloniseerd!
What is shown is just an online tool for showing true continent size. This is the equal earth projection, and you've probably already seen it in schools:
That's an equal area projection, and I hate that they named it Equal Earth when there's many ways to skin that cat. There are many ways to do equal area projections, such as Albers, Lambert, Mollweide, and more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-area_projection
They really should use the Winkel Tripel. It's a fantastic compromise projection that doesn't perfectly preserve anything (area, shape, size, and direction), but also doesn't horribly distort anything except for the shape of Antarctica.
Oh god, I think I'm in love:
Do nothing. We are happy to see Russia going far away from the Finland.
Lol
This is true proportional/scaled size. I'm sure Russia is bigger than an inch wide as it's displayed on my screen
load more comments
(2 replies)
This is going to piss off flat earthers. "What projection?"
3D surfaces refuse to play well with 2D projections.
um, okay but this specific distortion is unhelpful to me. it just shows the extent of the distortion, not what the new map would be. the new map is the most pertinent piece of info.
I feel like I've been lied to even though I knew about the mercater projection.
view more: next ›