Interestingly enough, the EU uses the LAEA projection for all its maps!
YSK There's a campaign to replace the distorted Mercator world map with the fairer Equal-Earth projection
Submitted 8 months ago by drmoose@lemmy.world to youshouldknow@lemmy.world
Comments
HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 8 months ago
By signing the petition you take a stand against a false narrative that downplays Africa’s vast size and diversity as the second-largest continent, reducing its perceived importance in global politics and economics. You can correct the narrative.
I’ll be real here, I have no idea what these people are talking about. The way Africa looked on maps has never had any bearing on my or probably anyone’s thinking of how important the country is in global politics or economics. If someone thinks “country looks small so they must be unimportant,” they are either a child or a fool. Or both.
victorz@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The fact that you say Africa is a country kind of speaks against your argument here, wouldn’t you say?
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I mean continent, it was a mistake.
sanguinepar@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The way Africa looked on maps has never had any bearing on my or probably anyone’s thinking of how important the country is in global politics or economics.
Africa isn’t a country though, it’s a continent. And one possible impact of the continent being represented much smaller than it really is, is people thinking of Africa as a country
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I meant continent. My bad.
drmoose@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I somewhat agree, Africa never looked small imo. However Russia, Greenland, Canada etc are so comically oversized that it absolutely makes a difference imo.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Its a distorted representation of what the Earth looks like, and regardless of the way the sphere of our Earth is displayed on a 2D plane, it will always be distorted.
I don’t see any tangible benefit from changing what has already worked and is globally accepted for many decades. It seems kinda nitpicky, or like these people are clout chasing or something.
lime@feddit.nu 8 months ago
it’s a pretty common talking point.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 8 months ago
it’s a pretty common talking point.
Not common enough, apparently.
I have never in my life ever heard anyone equate the size of a country on a map to its importance to global politics and economics. And I am old enough to remember when you had to hang up the phone before you could use the internet.
bdonvr@thelemmy.club 8 months ago
It’s not a bad compromise projection honestly. Why not?
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
none of this matters, because we all know the earth is flat. Just because other planets are round, doesn’t mean the earth is!
logi@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Faithfully projecting a globe onto a flat surface is impossible and all projections have to balance a number of compromises. Mercator retains compass directions and the shapes of land masses but entirely sacrifices relative scale between equatorial regions and polar regions. This makes it great for navigating a 17th century vessel. Other projections strike a different balance, like this one, and sacrifice compass direction and land mass shapes in order to perfectly retain scale. On this map, my little Arctic island looks like someone stepped on it.
IMO a balanced projection will compromise on all the nice properties a projection can have, and if that isn’t acceptable, then get a globe.
JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Those distances get exaggerated up on the poles though. What about that other one that looks like a bunch of orange slices?
Tattorack@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That one has the problem that someone might get hungry and eat the slices.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 8 months ago
If you're going to break things up, at least use the Waterman Butterfly, which doesn't look disgusting or split Greenland in half.
Tattorack@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think the Waterman Butterfly looks like a complete mess.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Obligatory West Wing Gall-Peters Projection link
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Mercator? I barely even know her!
cerement@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
still not as aesthetic as Waterman butterfly projection
(and relevant XKCD)
craigers@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Came here to make sure that xkcd got posted. Well done.
BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 8 months ago
That projection shows how vast the Pacific is
roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
It’s almost two entire sections. With just a little of North America, Asia, and Antarctica. No other body is water or land mass comes anywhere near that.
And if you still don’t think that’s vast enough, maybe a lifetime of bad projections have given you a distorted view of the Pacific’s size. Mercator and Mercator like projections definitely make the Pacific look much too large near the poles.
Lodespawn@aussie.zone 8 months ago
I didn’t think I’d ever have a favourite map but here we are.
oxysis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
I mean the problem with any projection of earth onto a 2d simplified shape surface is that it will be inherently distorted. The Mercator projection is scaled properly towards the equator but has to scale upwards more and more toward the poles to be able to fit the given area.
Even their own map, which for some reason isn’t shown in either the video or on the main page, isn’t accurate either. It’s better but is also warped in its own way, it would be nice if they had a little blurb that says something to that effect.
Here’s the actual map projection they are pushing for; equal-earth.com/equal-earth-projection.html
CaptDust@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
teft@piefed.social 8 months ago
Jakule17@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I hope someone travels Antarctic to Alaska on this map
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I mean, I’m not exactly thrilled about it erasing my country… Did a cartographer from New Zealand make this as an act of revenge? 🤔
T156@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It seems like the kind of thing that would give rise to the
~Earth movement
panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
We could also have made Mercator maps of varying position, but that might not center Europe.
Gork@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
I kinda like the Winkel Triple or Kavrayskiy VII projections. They look a bit more natural compared to the Mercator.
aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com 8 months ago
Not a single link there to technical details about the projection.
can@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
You can get this with a few clicks
Equal Earth is an equal-area (equivalent) projection. Shapes, directions, angles, and distances are distorted and stretched north-south in tropical and mid-latitude areas. Nearer the poles, features are compressed in the north-south direction. Distortion values are symmetric across the equator and the central meridian.
and there’s a paper but the link requires access
drmoose@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The slider is very revealing. Hard to believe that were still using Mercator projection when its so incredibly deceiving even if you actually know the real sizes.
Soggy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Size only really matters if you’re using the map for overland navigation. (And it’s quite telling that the project is just injecting their own bias instead of actually pushing for accurate representation.)
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 8 months ago
Mercator is awesome with compass directions. That's why it's the oldest and most popular out of the popular ones today.
Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Okay… but doesn’t this just introduce the issue of flat maps distorting anything to the east or west of center in a different way?
kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
If it’s already distorted, switching to a different distortion that’s area-preserving can still be an improvement.
Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Hm… personally, I think it’s very situational, but generally I feel like a more accurate shape is more important than size. I especially feel like it would be important for children who are just learning the map.