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Except, this is the Mercator projection, which distorts the size of objects as latitude increases from the Equator[1], rendering the whole website pretty much u

Except, this is the Mercator projection, which distorts the size of objects as latitude increases from the Equator[1], rendering the whole website pretty much useless. Consider using something like the Gall–Peters projection[2]. It is interesting to compare continents at their true size. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection

jccalhoun 11y ago
That's what I thought at first but if you search for a country then drag it around, it will change its size as you get closer to or further away from the equator so it takes the distortion into account. So maybe pointing out the distortion in the Mercator projection is part of the point?
- dtparr 11y ago
  Yeah, I took that as the whole point. You can overlay one country on another to see how they relate despite being at wildly varying latitudes on this projection. E.g pull Greenland down to India.
aw3c2 11y ago
Sorry to see you downvoted from people who think you are wrong. You are right. The projection still matters here. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/3jcumk/the_democratic_republic_of_the_congo_a_belgian/cuo71os https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/3jcumk/the_democra... explained it well recently.
- thedufer 11y ago
  The country overlays change size as you move them north/south. Showing how the Mercator projection affects your perspective on country size is the whole point here. The downvotes are likely because parent is giving the impression that they couldn't be bothered to spend 3 seconds finding out what's going on before commenting about it.
  - aw3c2 11y ago
    The point is that comparing shapes of different sizes still overly exaggerates the scale of the bigger one here. It does not allow for any kind of "true size" comparison.
WildUtah 11y ago
https://xkcd.com/977/ https://xkcd.com/977/ "Gall-Peters: I hate you."

jccalhoun 11y ago

That's what I thought at first but if you search for a country then drag it around, it will change its size as you get closer to or further away from the equator so it takes the distortion into account. So maybe pointing out the distortion in the Mercator projection is part of the point?

dtparr 11y ago
Yeah, I took that as the whole point. You can overlay one country on another to see how they relate despite being at wildly varying latitudes on this projection. E.g pull Greenland down to India.

aw3c2 11y ago

Sorry to see you downvoted from people who think you are wrong. You are right. The projection still matters here. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/3jcumk/the_democratic_republic_of_the_congo_a_belgian/cuo71os https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/3jcumk/the_democra... explained it well recently.

thedufer 11y ago
The country overlays change size as you move them north/south. Showing how the Mercator projection affects your perspective on country size is the whole point here. The downvotes are likely because parent is giving the impression that they couldn't be bothered to spend 3 seconds finding out what's going on before commenting about it.
- aw3c2 11y ago
  The point is that comparing shapes of different sizes still overly exaggerates the scale of the bigger one here. It does not allow for any kind of "true size" comparison.

WildUtah 11y ago

https://xkcd.com/977/ https://xkcd.com/977/ "Gall-Peters: I hate you."