Yet another reason to tut at the Mercator map projection

[funtycunk@mastodonapp.uk]

@infobeautiful there's an excellent episode of Map Men about this (all their videos are excellent)
https://youtu.be/jtBV3GgQLg8

[sassinake@mastodon.social]

@infobeautiful

They gave some Eastern Canada provinces to the US. Don't comply in advance!

[niall@mastodon.nz]

@davey_cakes @infobeautiful or show the orange orangutan this map and he'll have a tantrum then move on to something else?

[jqmcd@sfba.social]

@infobeautiful It’s like stepping out of a cold shower!

[bobdevney@wandering.shop]

@infobeautiful

Fascinating, thanks!

Here's obligatory link to great bit from TV's "The West Wing." Where cartographers compare Mercator versus Peters projections for stunned C.J. and Josh.

The head map guy is played with perfect drollery by the invaluable John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise; The Man from Earth, etc.).

Cartographer: "Nothing's where you think it is."
C.J: "Where is it?"
Cartographer: "I'm glad you asked…"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Xyz9MgDWA

#Maps #TV #Imperialism #Cartography

[ravenluni@furry.engineer]

@infobeautiful
Well Austrailia is wrong for a start since about 70% is desert / uninhabited

[wintergr33n@lingo.lol]

@infobeautiful

Kazakhstan is huge, but it's not that huge.

Maybe I'm confused about what this is showing.

[malte@radikal.social]

@davey_cakes Regardless of your sarcasm, that is not the choice for Denmark to take (your joke reproduces that idea). Greenland has native people living there and it is not something to hand over or not.

[malte@radikal.social]

@infobeautiful What would the "True Country Size Map" be called? I'm ready to orient myself toward something else than the Mercator map projection.

[alejandro_p@mathstodon.xyz]

@infobeautiful Equadorians have no issue with this projection tho

[quixote@mastodon.nz]

@infobeautiful Very useful to see. Done by a professional, so I must be wrong, but where I am (north New Zealand) is at about the same latitude as San Francisco, but we seem to be less shrunk?

Re discussion about more realistic projections, my favourite is Cahill-Keyes. http://www.genekeyes.com/world_map_poster.html

[wintergr33n@lingo.lol]

@malte @infobeautiful

Yeah, I would rather just see a new map than this.

OK, here's two:

http://www.authagraph.com/projects/description/%E3%80%90%E4%BD%9C%E5%93%81%E8%A7%A3%E8%AA%AC%E3%80%91%E8%A8%98%E4%BA%8B01/?lang=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map

[utf_7@mastodon.social]

@infobeautiful https://realcountrysizes.com/

[edgeofeurope@mastodon.social]

@infobeautiful it all depends on what the purpose of the map is.

[osteopenia_powers@newsie.social]

@lokjo
Thanks, I'll fix it.
@stevefaeembra @x_tof @infobeautiful

[libroraptor@mastodon.nz]

@edgeofeurope @infobeautiful Indeed. I feel that the anti-Mercator abuse neglects what the projection is good for, and what practical problem it was invented to solve.

[sleepy62@social.vivaldi.net]

@infobeautiful

A very bad graphic. The point is taken but that map is very inaccurate. Eg the Canadian southern border should fit perfectly with the USA but it is shrink way too much. There are much better maps which account for there projection errors.

[bruce@darkmoon.social]

@infobeautiful

What this map shows is that America's penis (Florida) is much smaller than Americans think.

[libroraptor@mastodon.nz]

@quixote @infobeautiful I have a feeling that it looks this way because NZ is smaller so, though the percentage difference is about the same, the absolute difference is smaller and less obvious to the eye in this colour scheme – at first glance, I don't see the NZ area difference at all because the colours are so close. Which means that the map maybe wasn't really made by an especially expert expert. Or else that the colour scheme was chosen exactly for that reason: to show that the southern lands are mistakenly thought to be much much smaller than they really are, relative to the northern. My son's godparents had no idea how big New Zealand was until they came to visit us; they were initially planning their trip on the understanding that the whole country was about the size of New England. These are Ivy educated people, both PhDs, both academics. Even they fell for it.

The more interesting thing that I see on this map is how, because the latitudes are omitted, the area scaling looks so asymmetric – you can't see that the equator is markedly within the lower half rather than through the middle and a lot of people have little idea of where the equator is. I have a feeling that this is its primary intention.

Still, the primary point of the Mercator projection is that it's good for compass navigation. Our failure to teach this is the problem – hiding the purpose sets learners up to use maps inappropriately for their whole lives.

[icooiey@mastodon.green]

@BobDevney @infobeautiful You can’t do that.