Whatdoyousaytoanicecupoftea
1431
41
7
ITS FINALLY HERE!
Aug 23, 2025 10:40 AM
Whatdoyousaytoanicecupoftea
1431
41
7
ITS FINALLY HERE!
jonhamsandwich11
PhloydPhan
if these guys find Brigadoon on that map you'll call me, right?
dalaiyoda
What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You:
torbtom
”More accurate” … either populistic drivel aimed at voters they know are uneducated, or they are uneducated themselves.
TotallyNotASerialKiller
Glad to see someone is working on the important issues in these trying times.
Alurkerforcedtologin
I can't tell if this is satire or not, and that worries me. The point of the Mercator map is that it shows accurate compass lines for sea navigation. That's the only reason it exists. A globe is the only accurate way to depict the planet without causing distortion from a 3d to 2d projection. And good luck plotting navigation courses using a globe. For everything else, use whatever projection you want, there is no limit to the ways a map can be projected.
Cpthornswoggler
They're free to make and use their own maps. That map my not show the true size of countries, but it's hard to show a globe as a flat surface.
Regeny
Which one are they gonna use? Where is the link to the article?
TheIronPenguin
They want to use the Equal Earth map (https://equal-earth.com/). And here's the article source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/15/african-union-true-size-world-map-replace-mercator-version
Alurkerforcedtologin
You can't use that map for navigation, and all maps are a design choice with compromises because there is no way to accurately represent the surface of a sphere on a 2d plane. Use whatever map fits best for the purpose, but I won't have somebody trying to dictate what map to use based on their feelings. Math doesn't care about your feelings.
MaleekTheFreak
They’re not asking for it to be changed for navigation. Just non-navigation related depictions of continents like geography books in classrooms. That’s what I got from the article.
tinydog
Portraying a three-dimensional globe in two dimensions requires a map projection. The only "accurate" map that shows all landforms in the correct proportion to each other... is a globe.
LicensedAdHominem
"No drink is perfect, no need to change the current standard" they said, and took another sip of the current standard:
an0therthr0waway
well, some are Goode, others not so good.
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Lefthandturnsignal
All 2D projections have their issues, that's kinda the whole problem.
TheIronPenguin
The projection they're advocating for is the Equal Earth Map (https://equal-earth.com) which is described as a pseudocylindrical projection, which gets around the spherical-to-flat problem somewhat. But yeah, we'll never have a perfect 2D map of the planet.
sometimesarobot
Sure but mercator is particularly bad
mondeca
That's the point. Every 2D map has its strengths and weaknesses, so which one you choose says something about what you value.
sometimesarobot
mercator for navigation only