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I 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 Greenla

I 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 ago
Agreed - 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 ago
The Greenwich meridian is not actually 100% arbitrary. It is a convenient location that does not split into two any significant landmasses.
- MrJohz 1y ago
  It 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 ago
  It's mostly a convenient location for a group based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich to define...
- mapmeld 1y ago
  I 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.
PaulRobinson 1y ago
[flagged]
- luckylion 1y ago
  > However, ask yourself why the mercator projection was so popular for so long, and why resistance to other projections took so long to counter. Wasn't that primarily because of sea trade and the mercator projection being very useful for that because you can draw a straight line on it and then set a straight course?
  - littlestymaar 1y ago
    As I said in another comment[1] this is only true at small scale. As soon as you start crossing oceans, you absolutely do not want to navigate in straight line as it's going to inflate your travel by a significant amount of distance. As such, while the Mercator projection makes total sense for a map of northern Europe or the Caribbean, it makes absolutely no sense as a map of the entire world. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45002873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45002873
    - luckylion 1y ago
      Did they have better map projections for cross-oceanic navigation 500 years ago when the mercator projection was invented?
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        AFAIK you'd need a projection for each origin/destination pair, so it's not exactly convenient. A globe is by far the best tool for such a job.
        luckylion 1y ago
        But globes aren't really that practical for navigation. You can plan your voyage, but when you're at sea, how do you make sure you're going in the right direction? Mercator has the advantage that you can use your compass and as long as you stay on course, you'll arrive at your destination. Keep in mind: that's 500 years ago, not 50 years ago. There's no question that we have better tools today but the question was why the mercator projection was so successful it became the default. I think "it was super useful at the time because it made navigation easy, reliable, and available to everyone, at any any weather" is a much more compelling explanation than "the would-be colonizers spread it because their home-countries were enlarged and they liked that and used it to oppress the equatorial countries".
varenc 1y ago
In my childhood I definitely thought Greenland was a much physically large place than it is, because of the mercator world map the hung on the wall in home room. Was dumbfounded when I learned it actually fits within the continental US.
thinkingemote 1y ago
Ironically it's by looking at a globe rather than even a map like this that Greenlands worth becomes more visible. We need to centre the globe on Greenland and see what it tells us. Greenland has at least two reasons to be worth more then it is now: in the future when the north polar ice sheet melts. The arctic circle becomes a navigable ocean. It's a short way from USA and Europe to Asia (or Russia). Secondly removing the ice means it's much easier to get the essential hydrocarbons underneath of which there are lots of and which many countries will want. So the reasons for Greenland is geography, security, control, trade and economy. And by thinking long term. It can also explain some off handed and mocked comments about Canada too.
notahacker 1y ago
Also notable that in the centuries following Mercator projection, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the northern parts of South America actually shrunk by the map were regarded as vast, unexplored wildernesses full of resources to plunder (and the northern realms expanded by the projection as inaccessible icy wasteland). Difficult to imagine the Gall-Peters projection making conquistadors and colonists from little European countries more respectful of the inhabitants of the equatorial realms, though I guess they might have got lost more using it...
rsynnott 1y ago
> Does anyone really think Greenland is the most important place in the world? Well, no-one sensible. However. "I love maps. And I always said: 'Look at the size of this. It's massive. That should be part of the United States.'" That’s noted very stable genius Donald Trump, there, on the enormity of Greenland, and why it would therefore be something which it is sensible to somehow try to buy.
rayiner 1y ago
> I have always found it a bizarre idea that we allegedly judge a country's importance by it's size on a Mercator projection map I don’t think anyone thinks this, because it is bizarre. It’s just that at some point we stigmatized calling out stupid ideas as long as someone is purporting to speak on behalf of non-Europeans.
atoav 1y ago
Doesn't bringing up the topic of different projections still act as a good reminder that maps of spherical planets will always have one issue or another? Graphical representations of things have an impact on preception and then by proxy on thinking. Maintaining aome degree of general awareness of these impacts leads to better thinking that is more reflective of the ground truth. Some would call that "woke" with bad intentions, but hey, they got an agenda and that agaenda doesn't care about facts.

thenoblesunfish 1y ago

Agreed - 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 ago

The Greenwich meridian is not actually 100% arbitrary. It is a convenient location that does not split into two any significant landmasses.

MrJohz 1y ago
It 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 ago
It's mostly a convenient location for a group based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich to define...
mapmeld 1y ago
I 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.

PaulRobinson 1y ago

[flagged]

luckylion 1y ago
> However, ask yourself why the mercator projection was so popular for so long, and why resistance to other projections took so long to counter. Wasn't that primarily because of sea trade and the mercator projection being very useful for that because you can draw a straight line on it and then set a straight course?
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  As I said in another comment[1] this is only true at small scale. As soon as you start crossing oceans, you absolutely do not want to navigate in straight line as it's going to inflate your travel by a significant amount of distance. As such, while the Mercator projection makes total sense for a map of northern Europe or the Caribbean, it makes absolutely no sense as a map of the entire world. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45002873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45002873
  - luckylion 1y ago
    Did they have better map projections for cross-oceanic navigation 500 years ago when the mercator projection was invented?
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      AFAIK you'd need a projection for each origin/destination pair, so it's not exactly convenient. A globe is by far the best tool for such a job.
      - luckylion 1y ago
        But globes aren't really that practical for navigation. You can plan your voyage, but when you're at sea, how do you make sure you're going in the right direction? Mercator has the advantage that you can use your compass and as long as you stay on course, you'll arrive at your destination. Keep in mind: that's 500 years ago, not 50 years ago. There's no question that we have better tools today but the question was why the mercator projection was so successful it became the default. I think "it was super useful at the time because it made navigation easy, reliable, and available to everyone, at any any weather" is a much more compelling explanation than "the would-be colonizers spread it because their home-countries were enlarged and they liked that and used it to oppress the equatorial countries".

varenc 1y ago

In my childhood I definitely thought Greenland was a much physically large place than it is, because of the mercator world map the hung on the wall in home room. Was dumbfounded when I learned it actually fits within the continental US.

thinkingemote 1y ago

Ironically it's by looking at a globe rather than even a map like this that Greenlands worth becomes more visible. We need to centre the globe on Greenland and see what it tells us. Greenland has at least two reasons to be worth more then it is now: in the future when the north polar ice sheet melts. The arctic circle becomes a navigable ocean. It's a short way from USA and Europe to Asia (or Russia). Secondly removing the ice means it's much easier to get the essential hydrocarbons underneath of which there are lots of and which many countries will want. So the reasons for Greenland is geography, security, control, trade and economy. And by thinking long term. It can also explain some off handed and mocked comments about Canada too.

notahacker 1y ago

Also notable that in the centuries following Mercator projection, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the northern parts of South America actually shrunk by the map were regarded as vast, unexplored wildernesses full of resources to plunder (and the northern realms expanded by the projection as inaccessible icy wasteland). Difficult to imagine the Gall-Peters projection making conquistadors and colonists from little European countries more respectful of the inhabitants of the equatorial realms, though I guess they might have got lost more using it...

rsynnott 1y ago

> Does anyone really think Greenland is the most important place in the world? Well, no-one sensible. However. "I love maps. And I always said: 'Look at the size of this. It's massive. That should be part of the United States.'" That’s noted very stable genius Donald Trump, there, on the enormity of Greenland, and why it would therefore be something which it is sensible to somehow try to buy.

rayiner 1y ago

> I have always found it a bizarre idea that we allegedly judge a country's importance by it's size on a Mercator projection map I don’t think anyone thinks this, because it is bizarre. It’s just that at some point we stigmatized calling out stupid ideas as long as someone is purporting to speak on behalf of non-Europeans.

atoav 1y ago

Doesn't bringing up the topic of different projections still act as a good reminder that maps of spherical planets will always have one issue or another? Graphical representations of things have an impact on preception and then by proxy on thinking. Maintaining aome degree of general awareness of these impacts leads to better thinking that is more reflective of the ground truth. Some would call that "woke" with bad intentions, but hey, they got an agenda and that agaenda doesn't care about facts.