12 ms·

Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung

by jgeada 3y ago

Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings). Because most maps people are exposed to are designed for navigation, it is the most commonly seen projection. And yes, it distorts size and is largely unusable past about ± 70º latitude. Every map is a compromise.

graypegg 3y ago
Exactly! This article mostly avoids it but the usual popsci refrain of “the map you know is WRONG” is a pet peeve of mine! It’s not like one projection is any worse than another, as long as they are useful for the context it’s designed for. Maps are diagrams!
- tony_cannistra 3y ago
  and all maps are WRONG
bluepod4 3y ago
> I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Hmm. That’s not usually how the discourse goes. It’s never “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. That’s terrible.” It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thought. That’s terrible.” FWIW, I was amazed in school when I saw a more accurate projection of the size of Europe. I mean, I _knew_ that it was tiny. But my thoughts about Europe definitely changed after seeing the other projection. Similarly but not size-related, I was amazed to learn that some countries place Asia in the center (and the social/cultural implications of this). I think you should be more amazed at people who _don’t_ care at _all _ about size. Sure, this group might include reasonable people like yourself who are knowledgeable about map distortions and trade offs. But a lot of the “I don’t care” group overlaps with the “Africa is a country” group. (Map size “memes” appear on Quora often and the degenerates come out of the woodworks to complain.)
- trhfhxggf 3y ago
  > It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thought. That’s terrible.” That's not less stupid than the other statement. It's like looking at your shadow at sunset and thinking, "Wow, I never realized I was 20 feet tall."
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    > It's like looking at your shadow at sunset and thinking, "Wow, I never realized I was 20 feet tall." Quite the opposite, no? It's like spending your whole life looking at only your evening shadow (Hello, Plato) and then seeing yourself in a good mirror and realising your actual height relative to the world around you for the first time.
    - bluepod4 3y ago
      Exactly.
- prepend 3y ago
  > But my thoughts about Europe definitely changed after seeing the other projection. That’s odd. Did you think land mass was somehow really important? Did you ever check out how small Britain or Spain or Portugal or Netherlands were to the size of their empire. Do you now think that Indonesia is more important because of its size? I would expect that revelations about population would be more worldview adjusting (Nigeria and Indonesia are so huge).
  - bluepod4 3y ago
    You have a fixed and narrow definition of what important means. Importance should change depending on context. Sure, you are definitely allowed to say that a certain metric (i.e. population size or density) has more practical applications and provides better signal for “blah blah”. But I’m not discussing “blah blah”.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
samtho 3y ago
I doubt people are actively giving less value or worth to places that appear smaller on the map. Additionally, the majority of people just don’t have a concrete frame of reference of distances beyond how far we can see. As such, the only real exposure to vast distances at the scale of continents is going to be via maps, unless you have the privilege of being in LEO. It’s pretty rare that flat projection is useful for anything except trivial, surface information paired with the sort of infantilizing teaching that prompts students into pointing to their home country. If this is your only exposure to the world, it’s easy to see how you will begin to assign some value at a subconscious level. Any indirect representation of something larger is going to be a compromise based on the needs of the application, but we can do better than the flat projection just from a UX level.
eddythompson80 3y ago
> Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! That's the point of the post. The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts because there is a specific shape of the world map that most people who are not map-heads or spherical projection experts take for guaranteed. Get a non-Mercator projection map and put it in your dinner room, and then see how many of your guests will comment about "so.. why is this map weird? It doesn't look right?" then tell them "every flat map projection distorts [...]" > Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings). Because most maps people are exposed to are designed for navigation, it is the most commonly seen projection. And yes, it distorts size and is largely unusable past about ± 70º latitude. Every map is a compromise. Out of the millions of decorative world maps on walls, kids with maps to learn the world, world maps on the news, maps used in data visualization charts etc., non of those are using the map for "navigation" yet they still use Mercator projection simply because "that's the right shape of the world" regardless of what "right" means. Not because they evaluated the compromises of the different projections and figures "oh maybe someone will be lost at sea and only have access to our GDP per capita world map visualization, better use Mercator projection to preserve local angles and line up with compass headings"
- the_af 3y ago
  > Get a non-Mercator projection map and put it in your dinner room, and then see how many of your guests will comment about "so.. why is this map weird? It doesn't look right?" then tell them "every flat map projection distorts [...]" This is actually a pretty cool conversation topic during dinner. I would take the opportunity to show off. It doesn't have to be a downside. "Hey, did you know that [interesting stuff]...?". If your guests are the kind of people who get irritated instead of awed by cool explanations about the world, I admit then you have a problem.
  - eddythompson80 3y ago
poulpy123 3y ago
And also Mercator remains popular because everyone is used to it and nobody actually cares that Greenland isn't really half the size of africa
garbagecoder 3y ago
Also 80% of the population lives in the northern hemisphere. It's not an evil scheme to cheat the 20% who live down there.
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > Also 80% of the population lives in the northern hemisphere. It's not an evil scheme to cheat the 20% who live down there. Actually 90%!
m463 3y ago
Even those plastic vacuformed relief maps distorts things... otherwise you probably wouldn't notice the mountains.
triyambakam 3y ago
Mercator just has an embedded momentum, it isn't somehow superior to other projections. Why do some people still use tech X when tech Y exists? Momentum, resistance to change, etc.
mc32 3y ago
The biggest miss on maps (and no fault of cartography, as there is no way to represent this well) is height and depth. The heights of mountains and the depths of water --it's hard to understand how shallow bodies of water are when compares to linear distances: the deepest part of the ocean is less distance linearly than the width of the city of SF.
bmitc 3y ago
> I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. Something that jumps out at me with the size is that the arctic regions are often viewed as huge and massive. However, when viewed with their true size, it greatly highlights just how fragile they are.
eevilspock 3y ago
Feels like you're pretending that Amero-Eurocentrism is not a thing, that there is no agenda or bias to be examined or criticized. If you've ever played Risk, the Amero-Eurocentrism is extreme. https://cdn.matthewhaeck.com/content/images/2015/02/risk.jpg https://cdn.matthewhaeck.com/content/images/2015/02/risk.jpg https://freeprintableaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/risk-board-north-africa-map-biofocuscommunicatie-risk-board-game-printable-map.jpg https://freeprintableaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/risk-... North America: 9 territories, larger than Africa. Europe: 7 territories, as large as Africa. USA: 3 territories, Canada: 5, Australia: 2 China, India, Brazil which are all very large: 1
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  The fact that you had to pick an example from a casual board game from 1957 kind-of shows how much of a non-issue this is.
- p0pcult 3y ago
  [dead]
- trallnag 3y ago
  I'd love maps where Europe is smaller to become the norm in schools and daily use oberall. Maybe it would make people migrating here from huge and vast countries reconsider.
frankfrankfrank 3y ago
I think that obsession you are referring to is part of a far larger mental illness that is coursing through European minds and cultures; the constant, compulsive obsession with trying to find the most obscure and ridiculous reasons, causes, and excuses for how brown people are Noble Savage victims and Europeans must hate themselves. This time the reason why Europeans must hate and destroy themselves is … spins the wheel … that maps are flat and the planet is not. European people and culture all over that planet is very mentally sick and self-destructive. Any individual person that exhibited even slightly as mentally ill mentalities as Europeans, we would immediately seek help for them.
- fifafifi 3y ago
  [dead]
awongh 3y ago
I feel like you actually stated the problem but then glossed over it. Mercator is UX optimized for naval navigation. Besides street navigation (where projection is irrelevant) I would posit that most people use maps for human geography reasons- what countries are next to Senegal, what kind of border does Thailand have with Malaysia, etc. In the use case of understanding geopolitical borders Mercator isn’t optimized for that. Asking why people are dissatisfied with mercator is like asking why my grandma is dissatisfied with the command line interface on the Linux laptop I got her. Doesn’t she know it’s the best for programmers?? Why are we trading off the accuracy of political borders for navigating by rhumb lines? I personally feel like a better projection would be one that basically ignored or distorted the oceans. On google maps there’s no reasons why the proportions of the Atlantic or Pacific would be relevant.
- adammarples 3y ago
  Well, what do you mean, the "accuracy" of political borders? Again, they're all inaccurate, just in different ways. Are you optimizing for length of border, or curvature, or orientation? Better nearer or further from the pole? Arguably there are far more borders nearer the equator than far from it, Africa has hundreds. And the Mercator projection does pretty much the best job at representing political borders length and orientation within Africa than any other.
  - awongh 3y ago
    I’m thinking about accuracy when looking at google maps. So do you mean that the length and orientation of the borders is the least distorted with the Mercator projection? I’m actually not sure how a different projection would distort a country’s border. But for example I’m not putting a ruler against my screen and I don’t know if I need to know if a border is oriented North or not. Mostly my point is, are we rendering maps for real users’ use cases or backwards rationalizing the status quo? Besides the level of effort that would be involved in changing it, can’t think of any real defense of the use Mercator projection itself in its current context. Some other comments references street maps that are grids, so a non-mercator projection would bend a grid of streets- this makes sense- but again, the main critique is around the relative size of countries- i.e. the look of the map tiles only when zoomed out sufficiently far. Maybe this is the main UX hurdle- in google maps to change the projection above some level of zoom.
ksec 3y ago
I wonder if Projection of Earth is the wrong way to do a map for average person. Where we dont use it for navigation. I want relative size of everything to be mostly correct. But I could take Africa being 5-10% smaller simply because of its relative size. All while the East and West of Cities to be accurate. i.e ALL of continental South America lies east of the state of Michigan.
coldtea 3y ago
>If size is your thing, use some other projection! They're not complaining about what they can use for themselves. They are complaining about what is in mainstream use (in schools, websites, books, documentaries, and so on) and thus what kinds of perception people get.
throwaway290 3y ago
The worst argument. These days how many people navigate by compass headings vs how many people base personal and policy decisions due to distorted view of the planet which downsizes planet's oceans and puts the great pacific garbage patch at the far edge of the map, out of sight out of mind? Just use another projection? Mercator is everywhere, nothing else. And yes, size of countries is important too (eg. how people fear Russia because it seems large and discount the importance of Africa because it's next to the equator).
- bentley 3y ago
  > Just use another projection? Mercator is everywhere, nothing else. What an exaggeration. Mercator may be the most common, but Winkel and Alders are both commonly encountered in the United States.
nathan_compton 3y ago
"Because most maps people are exposed to are designed for navigation." Most maps people are exposed to aren't being used for navigation, but for education (at least where the question of the Mercator projection is concerned). People are naturally hung up on it because why use a projection which is useful for navigation in a world history class or as a background image in a news cast or as a decoration on the wall? "If size is your thing, use some other projection!" This is basically exactly what the people "hung up" on the Mercator projection are saying! We should be using other projections! It seems a totally reasonable thing to point out to me.
- bentley 3y ago
  > People are naturally hung up on it because why use a projection which is useful for navigation in a world history class or as a background image in a news cast or as a decoration on the wall? Are world history classes favoring Mercator? Are newscasts using Mercator in background images? Are wall maps using primarily Mercator? (These may have differing answers!) As a kid I often encountered oval‐shaped world maps which obviously weren’t Mercator (most likely Robinson or Winkel tripel). And road maps of the United States had curved borders, not straight borders, so those obviously weren’t Mercator either (possibly Alders). And I had globes both at home and at school. So while Mercator is certainly common, and it’s worth explaining tradeoffs in map projection especially in an educational context, I question whether it’s actually as universal as people here are saying. > We should be using other projections! Are we not?
  - nathan_compton 3y ago
    If you ask an american to imagine a world map, they are imagining the mercator projection if they can imagine anything at all.
    - bentley 3y ago
      Your “nuh‐uh” is a weak response to an American anecdote.
shard 3y ago
Every chance I get I try to promote the Cahill-Keys projection. Not only does it better preserve area and reminds you that the earth is a sphere, it is also one of the more esthetically pleasing projections out there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_project...

by jgeada 3y ago

graypegg 3y ago

Exactly! This article mostly avoids it but the usual popsci refrain of “the map you know is WRONG” is a pet peeve of mine! It’s not like one projection is any worse than another, as long as they are useful for the context it’s designed for. Maps are diagrams!

tony_cannistra 3y ago
and all maps are WRONG

bluepod4 3y ago

> I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! Hmm. That’s not usually how the discourse goes. It’s never “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. That’s terrible.” It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thought. That’s terrible.” FWIW, I was amazed in school when I saw a more accurate projection of the size of Europe. I mean, I _knew_ that it was tiny. But my thoughts about Europe definitely changed after seeing the other projection. Similarly but not size-related, I was amazed to learn that some countries place Asia in the center (and the social/cultural implications of this). I think you should be more amazed at people who _don’t_ care at _all _ about size. Sure, this group might include reasonable people like yourself who are knowledgeable about map distortions and trade offs. But a lot of the “I don’t care” group overlaps with the “Africa is a country” group. (Map size “memes” appear on Quora often and the degenerates come out of the woodworks to complain.)

trhfhxggf 3y ago
> It usually goes something like “wow, Country X is actually smaller than Country Y. This distorts our worldview and makes us think things we shouldn’t have thought. That’s terrible.” That's not less stupid than the other statement. It's like looking at your shadow at sunset and thinking, "Wow, I never realized I was 20 feet tall."
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  > It's like looking at your shadow at sunset and thinking, "Wow, I never realized I was 20 feet tall." Quite the opposite, no? It's like spending your whole life looking at only your evening shadow (Hello, Plato) and then seeing yourself in a good mirror and realising your actual height relative to the world around you for the first time.
  - bluepod4 3y ago
    Exactly.
prepend 3y ago
> But my thoughts about Europe definitely changed after seeing the other projection. That’s odd. Did you think land mass was somehow really important? Did you ever check out how small Britain or Spain or Portugal or Netherlands were to the size of their empire. Do you now think that Indonesia is more important because of its size? I would expect that revelations about population would be more worldview adjusting (Nigeria and Indonesia are so huge).
- bluepod4 3y ago
  You have a fixed and narrow definition of what important means. Importance should change depending on context. Sure, you are definitely allowed to say that a certain metric (i.e. population size or density) has more practical applications and provides better signal for “blah blah”. But I’m not discussing “blah blah”.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

samtho 3y ago

I doubt people are actively giving less value or worth to places that appear smaller on the map. Additionally, the majority of people just don’t have a concrete frame of reference of distances beyond how far we can see. As such, the only real exposure to vast distances at the scale of continents is going to be via maps, unless you have the privilege of being in LEO. It’s pretty rare that flat projection is useful for anything except trivial, surface information paired with the sort of infantilizing teaching that prompts students into pointing to their home country. If this is your only exposure to the world, it’s easy to see how you will begin to assign some value at a subconscious level. Any indirect representation of something larger is going to be a compromise based on the needs of the application, but we can do better than the flat projection just from a UX level.

eddythompson80 3y ago

> Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection! That's the point of the post. The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts because there is a specific shape of the world map that most people who are not map-heads or spherical projection experts take for guaranteed. Get a non-Mercator projection map and put it in your dinner room, and then see how many of your guests will comment about "so.. why is this map weird? It doesn't look right?" then tell them "every flat map projection distorts [...]" > Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings). Because most maps people are exposed to are designed for navigation, it is the most commonly seen projection. And yes, it distorts size and is largely unusable past about ± 70º latitude. Every map is a compromise. Out of the millions of decorative world maps on walls, kids with maps to learn the world, world maps on the news, maps used in data visualization charts etc., non of those are using the map for "navigation" yet they still use Mercator projection simply because "that's the right shape of the world" regardless of what "right" means. Not because they evaluated the compromises of the different projections and figures "oh maybe someone will be lost at sea and only have access to our GDP per capita world map visualization, better use Mercator projection to preserve local angles and line up with compass headings"

the_af 3y ago
> Get a non-Mercator projection map and put it in your dinner room, and then see how many of your guests will comment about "so.. why is this map weird? It doesn't look right?" then tell them "every flat map projection distorts [...]" This is actually a pretty cool conversation topic during dinner. I would take the opportunity to show off. It doesn't have to be a downside. "Hey, did you know that [interesting stuff]...?". If your guests are the kind of people who get irritated instead of awed by cool explanations about the world, I admit then you have a problem.
- eddythompson80 3y ago

poulpy123 3y ago

And also Mercator remains popular because everyone is used to it and nobody actually cares that Greenland isn't really half the size of africa

garbagecoder 3y ago

Also 80% of the population lives in the northern hemisphere. It's not an evil scheme to cheat the 20% who live down there.

andsoitis 3y ago
> Also 80% of the population lives in the northern hemisphere. It's not an evil scheme to cheat the 20% who live down there. Actually 90%!

m463 3y ago

Even those plastic vacuformed relief maps distorts things... otherwise you probably wouldn't notice the mountains.

triyambakam 3y ago

Mercator just has an embedded momentum, it isn't somehow superior to other projections. Why do some people still use tech X when tech Y exists? Momentum, resistance to change, etc.

mc32 3y ago

The biggest miss on maps (and no fault of cartography, as there is no way to represent this well) is height and depth. The heights of mountains and the depths of water --it's hard to understand how shallow bodies of water are when compares to linear distances: the deepest part of the ocean is less distance linearly than the width of the city of SF.

bmitc 3y ago

> I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. Something that jumps out at me with the size is that the arctic regions are often viewed as huge and massive. However, when viewed with their true size, it greatly highlights just how fragile they are.

eevilspock 3y ago

Feels like you're pretending that Amero-Eurocentrism is not a thing, that there is no agenda or bias to be examined or criticized. If you've ever played Risk, the Amero-Eurocentrism is extreme. https://cdn.matthewhaeck.com/content/images/2015/02/risk.jpg https://cdn.matthewhaeck.com/content/images/2015/02/risk.jpg https://freeprintableaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/risk-board-north-africa-map-biofocuscommunicatie-risk-board-game-printable-map.jpg https://freeprintableaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/risk-... North America: 9 territories, larger than Africa. Europe: 7 territories, as large as Africa. USA: 3 territories, Canada: 5, Australia: 2 China, India, Brazil which are all very large: 1

YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
The fact that you had to pick an example from a casual board game from 1957 kind-of shows how much of a non-issue this is.
p0pcult 3y ago
[dead]
trallnag 3y ago
I'd love maps where Europe is smaller to become the norm in schools and daily use oberall. Maybe it would make people migrating here from huge and vast countries reconsider.

frankfrankfrank 3y ago

I think that obsession you are referring to is part of a far larger mental illness that is coursing through European minds and cultures; the constant, compulsive obsession with trying to find the most obscure and ridiculous reasons, causes, and excuses for how brown people are Noble Savage victims and Europeans must hate themselves. This time the reason why Europeans must hate and destroy themselves is … spins the wheel … that maps are flat and the planet is not. European people and culture all over that planet is very mentally sick and self-destructive. Any individual person that exhibited even slightly as mentally ill mentalities as Europeans, we would immediately seek help for them.

fifafifi 3y ago
[dead]

awongh 3y ago

I feel like you actually stated the problem but then glossed over it. Mercator is UX optimized for naval navigation. Besides street navigation (where projection is irrelevant) I would posit that most people use maps for human geography reasons- what countries are next to Senegal, what kind of border does Thailand have with Malaysia, etc. In the use case of understanding geopolitical borders Mercator isn’t optimized for that. Asking why people are dissatisfied with mercator is like asking why my grandma is dissatisfied with the command line interface on the Linux laptop I got her. Doesn’t she know it’s the best for programmers?? Why are we trading off the accuracy of political borders for navigating by rhumb lines? I personally feel like a better projection would be one that basically ignored or distorted the oceans. On google maps there’s no reasons why the proportions of the Atlantic or Pacific would be relevant.

adammarples 3y ago
Well, what do you mean, the "accuracy" of political borders? Again, they're all inaccurate, just in different ways. Are you optimizing for length of border, or curvature, or orientation? Better nearer or further from the pole? Arguably there are far more borders nearer the equator than far from it, Africa has hundreds. And the Mercator projection does pretty much the best job at representing political borders length and orientation within Africa than any other.
- awongh 3y ago
  I’m thinking about accuracy when looking at google maps. So do you mean that the length and orientation of the borders is the least distorted with the Mercator projection? I’m actually not sure how a different projection would distort a country’s border. But for example I’m not putting a ruler against my screen and I don’t know if I need to know if a border is oriented North or not. Mostly my point is, are we rendering maps for real users’ use cases or backwards rationalizing the status quo? Besides the level of effort that would be involved in changing it, can’t think of any real defense of the use Mercator projection itself in its current context. Some other comments references street maps that are grids, so a non-mercator projection would bend a grid of streets- this makes sense- but again, the main critique is around the relative size of countries- i.e. the look of the map tiles only when zoomed out sufficiently far. Maybe this is the main UX hurdle- in google maps to change the projection above some level of zoom.

ksec 3y ago

I wonder if Projection of Earth is the wrong way to do a map for average person. Where we dont use it for navigation. I want relative size of everything to be mostly correct. But I could take Africa being 5-10% smaller simply because of its relative size. All while the East and West of Cities to be accurate. i.e ALL of continental South America lies east of the state of Michigan.

coldtea 3y ago

>If size is your thing, use some other projection! They're not complaining about what they can use for themselves. They are complaining about what is in mainstream use (in schools, websites, books, documentaries, and so on) and thus what kinds of perception people get.

throwaway290 3y ago

The worst argument. These days how many people navigate by compass headings vs how many people base personal and policy decisions due to distorted view of the planet which downsizes planet's oceans and puts the great pacific garbage patch at the far edge of the map, out of sight out of mind? Just use another projection? Mercator is everywhere, nothing else. And yes, size of countries is important too (eg. how people fear Russia because it seems large and discount the importance of Africa because it's next to the equator).

bentley 3y ago
> Just use another projection? Mercator is everywhere, nothing else. What an exaggeration. Mercator may be the most common, but Winkel and Alders are both commonly encountered in the United States.

nathan_compton 3y ago

"Because most maps people are exposed to are designed for navigation." Most maps people are exposed to aren't being used for navigation, but for education (at least where the question of the Mercator projection is concerned). People are naturally hung up on it because why use a projection which is useful for navigation in a world history class or as a background image in a news cast or as a decoration on the wall? "If size is your thing, use some other projection!" This is basically exactly what the people "hung up" on the Mercator projection are saying! We should be using other projections! It seems a totally reasonable thing to point out to me.

bentley 3y ago
> People are naturally hung up on it because why use a projection which is useful for navigation in a world history class or as a background image in a news cast or as a decoration on the wall? Are world history classes favoring Mercator? Are newscasts using Mercator in background images? Are wall maps using primarily Mercator? (These may have differing answers!) As a kid I often encountered oval‐shaped world maps which obviously weren’t Mercator (most likely Robinson or Winkel tripel). And road maps of the United States had curved borders, not straight borders, so those obviously weren’t Mercator either (possibly Alders). And I had globes both at home and at school. So while Mercator is certainly common, and it’s worth explaining tradeoffs in map projection especially in an educational context, I question whether it’s actually as universal as people here are saying. > We should be using other projections! Are we not?
- nathan_compton 3y ago
  If you ask an american to imagine a world map, they are imagining the mercator projection if they can imagine anything at all.
  - bentley 3y ago
    Your “nuh‐uh” is a weak response to an American anecdote.

shard 3y ago

Every chance I get I try to promote the Cahill-Keys projection. Not only does it better preserve area and reminds you that the earth is a sphere, it is also one of the more esthetically pleasing projections out there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_projection https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahill%E2%80%93Keyes_project...