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> I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's

> I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. This is kind of personally embarrassing, but due to seeing Mercator maps all the time growing up it wasn't until later in life that I realized that Greenland isn't actually a gigantic landmass the size of Africa. > The value of a geographic projection is in its utility for the task at hand Other than maritime navigation, I can't think of many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection.

jubilanti 28d ago
I'd bet a lot of money that Trump and all the others pushing for a U.S. "liberation" of Greenland also think it is a similar size to Africa, not 1/14th the size. Africa is 14x larger, but near the same size on the maps our leaders have grown up with for 80+ years. This has clearly influenced geopolitics. Which is the point of the UN. Which is just a container for what the countries of the world want to agree on. When the UN "doesn't work" for some thing it is because the countries of the world don't want to work together for that thing.
- tekla 28d ago
  > This has clearly influenced geopolitics Citation needed. This feels like the entire hubub from leftists about how schools use the normal map because of racism and not because its actually useful. Of course they were lying the entire time.
dnautics 28d ago
> many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. What sort of tasks besides a size measuring contest is an equal area projection good for?
- hn993302 28d ago
  Besides size, there's distance. Like it's annoying how UK and France look much further apart than they actually are, and every sea/air route appears to not take the shortest path. I'd be fine with this change if it weren't about trying to make Africa look more important. They're just fixing a misleading map.
  - neuronexmachina 28d ago
    It's worth noting that Equal Earth isn't an equidistant projection. The upper bound on distance distortion is an order of magnitude less than Mercator's though.
  - dnautics 28d ago
    What's the task here?
    - hn993302 28d ago
      Casually looking at a map to understand relatively how far away things are from each other
      - dnautics 28d ago
        Unless your eye can casually assemble great circle routes it's hopeless on any projection except the radial one (and then only for routes emanating from one spot)
        hn993302 27d ago
        Nobody is looking for exactness here
  - josephcsible 28d ago
    Equal area projections don't preserve distance.
    - 27d ago
rmunn 28d ago
> Other than maritime navigation, I can't think of many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. Precisely why, I suspect, the US voted against the change. (One of the reasons, at least) I mean, gee, I wonder why the country with the world's largest navy* would prefer maps where you can draw a line on the map between two points and it's the actual compass direction? (Give or take a bit of weirdness near the poles, where the difference between the Earth's rotational pole and its magnetic pole actually matters in a way it doesn't matter below the polar circles). It's just a symbolic vote, of course, and nobody's navy is going to stop using the so-useful-for-maritime-navigation Mercator just because of this UN vote. But still, I would bet that factored into the reasoning. How much? Who knows, I certainly couldn't say. Except to suspect that it was a non-trivial factor. * Largest by tonnage — China and Russia have more total ships, with the US in third place by ship count, but the US has nearly half the number of aircraft carriers in the entire world, 11 out of a total of 23, and aircraft carriers are some of the heaviest ships out there. Numbers are from https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-navies-in-the-world https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-n...
- antonvs 27d ago
  I doubt that was a factor at all. As you say, voting for this wouldn’t change the maps a navy uses anyway. Besides, navies aren’t normally using world maps, they use maps for specific regions. The vote was because the US is an intransigent rogue state at this point, and it doesn’t want to accept any outside influence whatsoever.
qlte 27d ago
Same, I'm also just barely old enough that a lot of the wall maps in elementary school were from the Cold War and remember thinking the USSR was like 1/4 the world's surface area thanks to the Mercator projection. My teachers had to remind students so many times that the size for Greenland was just way off but it was hard for that to sink in for a kid used to seeing it every single day.

jubilanti 28d ago

I'd bet a lot of money that Trump and all the others pushing for a U.S. "liberation" of Greenland also think it is a similar size to Africa, not 1/14th the size. Africa is 14x larger, but near the same size on the maps our leaders have grown up with for 80+ years. This has clearly influenced geopolitics. Which is the point of the UN. Which is just a container for what the countries of the world want to agree on. When the UN "doesn't work" for some thing it is because the countries of the world don't want to work together for that thing.

tekla 28d ago
> This has clearly influenced geopolitics Citation needed. This feels like the entire hubub from leftists about how schools use the normal map because of racism and not because its actually useful. Of course they were lying the entire time.

dnautics 28d ago

> many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. What sort of tasks besides a size measuring contest is an equal area projection good for?

hn993302 28d ago
Besides size, there's distance. Like it's annoying how UK and France look much further apart than they actually are, and every sea/air route appears to not take the shortest path. I'd be fine with this change if it weren't about trying to make Africa look more important. They're just fixing a misleading map.
- neuronexmachina 28d ago
  It's worth noting that Equal Earth isn't an equidistant projection. The upper bound on distance distortion is an order of magnitude less than Mercator's though.
- dnautics 28d ago
  What's the task here?
  - hn993302 28d ago
    Casually looking at a map to understand relatively how far away things are from each other
    - dnautics 28d ago
      Unless your eye can casually assemble great circle routes it's hopeless on any projection except the radial one (and then only for routes emanating from one spot)
      - hn993302 27d ago
        Nobody is looking for exactness here
- josephcsible 28d ago
  Equal area projections don't preserve distance.
  - 27d ago

rmunn 28d ago

> Other than maritime navigation, I can't think of many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. Precisely why, I suspect, the US voted against the change. (One of the reasons, at least) I mean, gee, I wonder why the country with the world's largest navy* would prefer maps where you can draw a line on the map between two points and it's the actual compass direction? (Give or take a bit of weirdness near the poles, where the difference between the Earth's rotational pole and its magnetic pole actually matters in a way it doesn't matter below the polar circles). It's just a symbolic vote, of course, and nobody's navy is going to stop using the so-useful-for-maritime-navigation Mercator just because of this UN vote. But still, I would bet that factored into the reasoning. How much? Who knows, I certainly couldn't say. Except to suspect that it was a non-trivial factor. * Largest by tonnage — China and Russia have more total ships, with the US in third place by ship count, but the US has nearly half the number of aircraft carriers in the entire world, 11 out of a total of 23, and aircraft carriers are some of the heaviest ships out there. Numbers are from https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-navies-in-the-world https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-n...

antonvs 27d ago
I doubt that was a factor at all. As you say, voting for this wouldn’t change the maps a navy uses anyway. Besides, navies aren’t normally using world maps, they use maps for specific regions. The vote was because the US is an intransigent rogue state at this point, and it doesn’t want to accept any outside influence whatsoever.

qlte 27d ago

Same, I'm also just barely old enough that a lot of the wall maps in elementary school were from the Cold War and remember thinking the USSR was like 1/4 the world's surface area thanks to the Mercator projection. My teachers had to remind students so many times that the size for Greenland was just way off but it was hard for that to sink in for a kid used to seeing it every single day.