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Equal Earth – Political Wall Map (2018)
- Animats 1y agoMandatory XKCD: "What your map projection says about you".[1] [1] https://xkcd.com/977/ https://xkcd.com/977/
- skylurk 1y agomandatory Gall–Peters clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY
- thunderbong 1y agoMobile version https://m.xkcd.com/977/ https://m.xkcd.com/977/
- r-u-serious 1y agoI love the "south at the top" variants! :D
- supersrdjan 1y agoLiving in the northern hemisphere, it bugs me that standard north-up, west-left maps don't match up with the sun and with our clocks. It's neat that both clock hands and the sun are "up" at noon. It would be even neater if that upward direction corresponded to south, since that's where the sun actually is at midday. With south-at-top, east-to-the-left, maps would sync with both our clocks and the sun's daily arc. But then we would lose the west-left rhyme.
- andyjohnson0 1y agoAs a European the "Oceania - South at Top" looks like some other planet. I like this very much - that there are ways of looking at something so singular and familiar, our shared planet, that make it look new and unfamiliar.
- BrenBarn 1y agoNumerous equal-area projections already exist. It's unclear what makes this one better.
- orangeboats 1y agoUsually it all boils down to "aesthetics". I am pretty sure most would agree that Gall-Peters is atrocious looking!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- PaulRobinson 1y agoThere is literally a huge and prominent link entitled "Equal Earth Projection" in the middle, at the top, that when clicked take you to a description of what the intent of the projection was: It was created to provide a visually pleasing alternative to the Gall-Peters projection, which some schools and socially concerned groups have adopted out of concern for fairness. Their priority is to show developing countries in the tropics and developed countries in the north with correctly proportioned sizes. In addition to being rigorously equal-area throughout, other Equal Earth projection features include: • An overall shape similar to that of the Robinson projection. (The Robinson, although popular and pleasing to the eye, is not equal-area as is the Equal Earth projection). • The curved sides of the projection suggest the spherical form of Earth. • Straight parallels that make it easier to compare how far north or south places are from the equator. Perhaps that makes it clearer for you.
- zahlman 1y agoYes, and there are also already multiple equal-area projections with similar properties, too. For example, the Goode homolosine "orange-peel" projection only loses out by failing to show contiguous oceans (emphasizing land masses instead) and having a discontinuity where two simpler projections are joined. It gives equal-area projection and improved shapes (as compared to fully homolographic projections) while still showing "curved sides [that] suggest the spherical form of Earth" (arguably, far more so). Its parallels are straight, and furthermore they are equidistant in the central latitudes (in which it's based on a sinusoidal projection). Oh, and it was developed over a century ago, and already in common use when Arno Peters started his activism for the Gall-Peters projection (called this even though Peters made no refinements in independently developing a projection identical to Gall's 1855 work, and even initially mis-described it).
- rich_sasha 1y agoI have always found it a bizarre idea that we allegedly judge a country's importance by it's size on a Mercator projection map. Does anyone really think Greenland is the most important place in the world? Europe is tiny, yet the kind of people to complain about it will also complain about the outsized importance of it. Africa, which is apparently a victim of such projectionism, is also placed in the middle because of where the arbitrary Greenwich meridian goes.
- thenoblesunfish 1y agoAgreed - territorial area is only one measure of importance, and probably not a great one. What would be more useful on a wall, if we are interested in such things, are bubbles with size showing population, GDP, life expectancy, etc. (a la https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles&url=v2 https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles&url=v2 ), arranged to preserve, as much as possible, country positions on the projection of your choosing.
- fph 1y agoThe Greenwich meridian is not actually 100% arbitrary. It is a convenient location that does not split into two any significant landmasses.
- MrJohz 1y agoIt does split off part of Russia, I believe. The Florence meridian works slightly better for avoiding splitting any landmasses. As I understand it, it's not the best location, it's just good enough and was very popular for historical reasons.
- notahacker 1y agoIt's mostly a convenient location for a group based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich to define...
- mapmeld 1y agoI don't think enough people talk about how lucky we are that the International Date Line can roughly follow a line of longitude 180 degrees from the Greenwich meridian. If you were on a planet with more land, or we could only draw it through the Atlantic or Australia, timezones would be a lot weirder.
- motbus3 1y ago[flagged]
- francisdavey 1y agoThe name of the island I live on (Amami) is misspelled. That does not give me a great deal of confidence about the rest of the map.
- ainiriand 1y agoI see Amami, what is the error?
- francisdavey 1y agoOn the detailed map showing Taiwan etc, the text on my image is clearly "Amani". I think that's true on the "big map" also.
- littlestymaar 1y agoOn the Greenwich-centered maps, it shows Amami in both the English[1] en the French[2] version at least. [1]: https://www.equal-earth.com/Equal-Earth-Map-0.jpg https://www.equal-earth.com/Equal-Earth-Map-0.jpg [2]: https://www.equal-earth.com/Equal-Earth-Map-0-FR.jpg https://www.equal-earth.com/Equal-Earth-Map-0-FR.jpg Where did you find the detailed maps?
- francisdavey 1y agoI was looking at the slide show, see for example: https://equal-earth.com/images/home/Slide_Show2-6.jpg https://equal-earth.com/images/home/Slide_Show2-6.jpg It is the most obvious place to look (being on the front page of the website).
- whatsupdog 1y ago[flagged]
- roenxi 1y agoAs a practical matter, the border would need to stop moving and become safe enough for surveyors to traverse in some way.
- Freak_NL 1y agoWhy did you include OpenStreetMap in your list? OpenStreetMap already allows for disputed borders (and there are a lot of those). If you look at the border of Russia, you'll note that Crimea is included: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/60189 https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/60189 And the border of Ukraine includes Crimea too: https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/60199 https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/60199 This is pretty much the current state of affairs as far as surveyable boundaries go. Russia has a de facto claim on Crimea by brute presence, Ukraine by international recognition. When that changes, OpenStreetMap will reflect the new boundaries correctly. Donbas and Luhansk are contested, obviously, but also lack a clearly defined border for Russia's claim, unlike Crimea. It is an active theatre of war, so any mapping of boundaries outside of Ukraine's original borders is out of scope for OpenStreetMap.
- kitd 1y agoSmall quibble: the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey all have "(UK)" appended. They are not actually part of the UK, but British Crown dependencies. Possible confusion (as with most things British and overseas).
- sengifluff 1y agoI think you may have misunderstood the meaning of the brackets. The key says this means “dependency or area of special sovereignty”.
- kitd 1y agoYou're correct. I didn't spot the legend.
- jll29 1y agoThe " (UK)" appendix roughly indicates who would come to protect them in case somebody else tried to invade. The channel island Jersey, for instance, more correctly "The Bailiwick of Jersey", is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. It is a British Crown Dependency with an independent local gouvernment, but not a sovereign state.
- mkl 1y agoThe choices of cities, towns, and lakes to display in New Zealand is rather strange. The biggest lakes in the South Island are missing, and Napier, Rotorua, and Nelson are shown while some bigger places aren't. Is it similar for other countries?
- frithsun 1y agoIt's not the size of the landmass that counts, anyway. It's how you use it.
- mentalgear 1y agoThere's a great online tool to compare the actual sizes of countries https://www.thetruesize.com https://www.thetruesize.com
- incone123 1y agoIf you want kids to understand what the world looks like, put a physical globe in every elementary classroom. This will give them a starting point from which to understand how different flat projections work.
- charlieo88 1y agoThis. Bonus, it helps make clear what is wrong with many flat-earthers assertions.
- gus_massa 1y agoIIRC my daughter used to have an inflatable plastic ball with a Earth political map on it, it's cheap enough to give each kid their own globe.
- rayiner 1y agoI went to school in virginia and we had globes. Did you guys not have globes in other states?
- roughly 1y agoWhile we’re discussing map projections - Tupaia’s map of the south seas deserves mention as a reminder that every map has a baked in set of assumptions and use cases: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2021/reading-pacific-navigators-mysterious-map https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2021/re... (For further exploration of the ideals of maps, James C Scott’s Seeing Like a State is excellent treatise for pulling the boundaries of the question back.)
- ks2048 1y agoI see the page about "Data Sources", but would be interested in more info about how it was made. Do people use "auto-layout" algorithms for placement of labels? Or maybe it is just started with something basic and have to do lots of refinements by-hand?
- relwin 1y ago"Gulf of Mexico" is correctly labeled!