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Any respectable publisher includes multiple projections of the world in their atlas, with an explanation section describing each at the beginning (i.e. which on

Any respectable publisher includes multiple projections of the world in their atlas, with an explanation section describing each at the beginning (i.e. which one is angle-preserving, which one is area-preserving, etc). It’s beyond me why people seem to be baffled by the area distortion of the Mercator projection - is this not taught in high school geography classes in the USA?

journalctl 7y ago
We were never taught it, as far as I can recall. I had to start playing around with GIS stuff before I really learned about map projections.
seniorivn 7y ago
Knowing that it is area distortion projection and overcoming your prejudice if you've never seen anything else isn't the same thing. For example European people have a feeling that something is wrong with the map when Europe portrait as small as it actually is.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  >if you've never seen anything else Which is pretty strange, considering most classrooms and even homes have a globe laying around. Maybe I’m just severely overestimating the scientific knowledge of the average person.
  - frutiger 7y ago
    I would hazard a guess that people’s intuition with shapes on a flat surface works better than their intuition on a curved surface, even though a globe is physically available.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    If they have a paper map, it will be Robinson or Winkel-Tripel, probably.
master-litty 7y ago
Anecdata, sample size one: High school classes in the US tend to teach the abstracted surface level topic but rarely delve into the why's and how's. In geography, we would learn what's on the map, not how the map was created and the different projections a map can have. Because of this weird system, I feel the Mercator projection would be most relevant in... A geometry course? And as silly as it is, that was indeed my initial reaction to your comment, which made me laugh. So map projections are in limbo between course subjects. I think that's why the Mercator projection is basically meme status -- That blind spot in education hits us all by surprise, it seems dead obvious, and so it tickles the funny bone.
kccqzy 7y ago
Of course, but I'm referring to the common case where only one map can be provided. Say you want to buy a world map to decorate your living room: https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/collections/world-maps/products/world-executive-wall-map-poster-size https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/collections/world-maps/p... Or simple when the map itself is secondary to the information presented on the map. Regarding your second map, I remember clearly in my geography classes the teacher refused to show us a simple map of the world (always a globe) until we actually learned about projections. It was a bit extreme but effective at conveying the fact that all projections distort things one way or another.

journalctl 7y ago

We were never taught it, as far as I can recall. I had to start playing around with GIS stuff before I really learned about map projections.

seniorivn 7y ago

Knowing that it is area distortion projection and overcoming your prejudice if you've never seen anything else isn't the same thing. For example European people have a feeling that something is wrong with the map when Europe portrait as small as it actually is.

layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
>if you've never seen anything else Which is pretty strange, considering most classrooms and even homes have a globe laying around. Maybe I’m just severely overestimating the scientific knowledge of the average person.
- frutiger 7y ago
  I would hazard a guess that people’s intuition with shapes on a flat surface works better than their intuition on a curved surface, even though a globe is physically available.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  If they have a paper map, it will be Robinson or Winkel-Tripel, probably.

master-litty 7y ago

Anecdata, sample size one: High school classes in the US tend to teach the abstracted surface level topic but rarely delve into the why's and how's. In geography, we would learn what's on the map, not how the map was created and the different projections a map can have. Because of this weird system, I feel the Mercator projection would be most relevant in... A geometry course? And as silly as it is, that was indeed my initial reaction to your comment, which made me laugh. So map projections are in limbo between course subjects. I think that's why the Mercator projection is basically meme status -- That blind spot in education hits us all by surprise, it seems dead obvious, and so it tickles the funny bone.

kccqzy 7y ago

Of course, but I'm referring to the common case where only one map can be provided. Say you want to buy a world map to decorate your living room: https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/collections/world-maps/products/world-executive-wall-map-poster-size https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/collections/world-maps/p... Or simple when the map itself is secondary to the information presented on the map. Regarding your second map, I remember clearly in my geography classes the teacher refused to show us a simple map of the world (always a globe) until we actually learned about projections. It was a bit extreme but effective at conveying the fact that all projections distort things one way or another.