In any current world map, Africa, China and Alaska are distorted, despite the availability of accurate satellite data. This phenomenon stems from the biggest challenge for cartographers: not being able to accurately depict the spherical world on a flat map.
Looking at maps of the world today, you are more likely to see North America bigger than Africa, Alaska “massive” than Mexico, and China smaller than Greenland. However, in reality, China is 4 times bigger than Greenland, Africa is 3 times bigger than North America, and Mexico is “massive” than Alaska.
The above distortion is the result of the Mercator projection , the most common type of map used to hang on classroom walls or printed in textbooks. The Mercator projection map was born in 1956 to help sailors navigate around the world.
Maps using the Mercator projection most commonly used today in textbooks and schools distort the dimensions of China, Africa, and Alaska.
According to experts, the biggest challenge is not being able to accurately depict the spherical world on a flat map – a problem that has haunted cartographers for centuries. Thus, the shape of world maps used to be very rich, from heart to cone. However, the difference gradually disappeared with the superior map pattern invented by Gerardus Mercator.
The familiar Mercator projection provides the correct shape of the lands, but at the expense of distorting their dimensions, in favor of the rich lands to the north.
You might think, the advent of satellite imagery and tools like Google Maps has improved our view of the world. However, that is not the case, according to writer James Wan of the Guardian magazine. Much of this is due to technical reasons, while other distortions are caused by ideology, which changes the way we see the world, Wan said.
In 2005, the Google Earth utility program showed the world with the areas of greatest user interest at the center and included whatever content we deem important. For almost the first time, the ability to create an accurate map has been put into everyone’s hands, and it has changed the way we see the world. However, it also has the disadvantage that there are not many uniform standards for content to be added to the map, and areas that are less populated or “less important” are ignored.
Today, every day there are millions of visits to Google Maps, which helps us navigate our way, observe streets, towns and countries. Google Maps claims to be in “the never-ending conquest of the perfect map”.
Jerry Brotton, cartographic historian and author of “A History of the World in Twelve Maps,” is skeptical. He argues that all maps are epochal and serve certain purposes.
World Map Template
