Yet another reason to tut at the Mercator map projectionhttps://brilliantmaps.com/mercator-vs-true-size/

@toddhorowitz @infobeautiful

Greenland's land area is approximately six times the size of Germany. Greenland has roughly the same size as Saudi Arabia. The USA is rougly 5 times bigger than Saudi Arabia.)
(I have heard this this week and just verified it with wikipedia, I found this comparison helpful)

@stevefaeembra @lokjo @x_tof @infobeautiful
This one substitutes the Prime Meridian for the equator. (Hilarity ensues)

@Osteopenia_Powers @stevefaeembra @x_tof @infobeautiful

Not sure if this is the link you wanted to post.

@infobeautiful there's an excellent episode of Map Men about this (all their videos are excellent)
https://youtu.be/jtBV3GgQLg8

@infobeautiful

They gave some Eastern Canada provinces to the US. Don't comply in advance!

@davey_cakes @infobeautiful or show the orange orangutan this map and he'll have a tantrum then move on to something else?

@infobeautiful It’s like stepping out of a cold shower!

@infobeautiful

Fascinating, thanks!

Here's obligatory link to great bit from TV's "The West Wing." Where cartographers compare Mercator versus Peters projections for stunned C.J. and Josh.

The head map guy is played with perfect drollery by the invaluable John Billingsley (Star Trek: Enterprise; The Man from Earth, etc.).

Cartographer: "Nothing's where you think it is."
C.J: "Where is it?"
Cartographer: "I'm glad you asked…"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Xyz9MgDWA

#Maps #TV #Imperialism #Cartography

@infobeautiful
Well Austrailia is wrong for a start since about 70% is desert / uninhabited

@infobeautiful

Kazakhstan is huge, but it's not that huge.

Maybe I'm confused about what this is showing.

@infobeautiful What would the "True Country Size Map" be called? I'm ready to orient myself toward something else than the Mercator map projection.

@infobeautiful Equadorians have no issue with this projection tho

@infobeautiful Very useful to see. Done by a professional, so I must be wrong, but where I am (north New Zealand) is at about the same latitude as San Francisco, but we seem to be less shrunk?

Re discussion about more realistic projections, my favourite is Cahill-Keyes. http://www.genekeyes.com/world_map_poster.html

@malte @infobeautiful

Yeah, I would rather just see a new map than this.

OK, here's two:

http://www.authagraph.com/projects/description/%E3%80%90%E4%BD%9C%E5%93%81%E8%A7%A3%E8%AA%AC%E3%80%91%E8%A8%98%E4%BA%8B01/?lang=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map

@infobeautiful https://realcountrysizes.com/

@infobeautiful it all depends on what the purpose of the map is.

@lokjo
Thanks, I'll fix it.
@stevefaeembra @x_tof @infobeautiful

@edgeofeurope @infobeautiful Indeed. I feel that the anti-Mercator abuse neglects what the projection is good for, and what practical problem it was invented to solve.

@infobeautiful

A very bad graphic. The point is taken but that map is very inaccurate. Eg the Canadian southern border should fit perfectly with the USA but it is shrink way too much. There are much better maps which account for there projection errors.

@infobeautiful

What this map shows is that America's penis (Florida) is much smaller than Americans think.