Interesting GIF - True size of countries vs. Mercator representation

[packman]

Downsizes Greenland and Russia quite a bit

[Aristus]

1. Cartographers For Social Equality demand better!

[CrispyQ]

4. That was great!

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. I have wondered for decades why maps are oriented north on top

on a round globe. Why not another way?

damn I miss West Wing.

[Aristus]

10. In the Ancient World, Mediterranean societies like Rome and Egypt, put South at the top!

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

29. European maps in the early Christian era often had east at the top

Because that was the direction of Jerusalem.

Similarly, churches were "oriented" -- and yes, that comes from the Latin word for "east" -- so that the wall the altar was up against was the eastern wall, for the same reason. Those traditionalist Catholics who want masses offered with the priest facing an altar up against the wall, not facing the congregation, will trot out the Latin phrase "ad orientam" -- to the east. Of course, for a long time, various churches have been built facing different directions. In my parish church. built about 15 years ago, "ad orientam" would actually be northwest. The church my mother-in-law attended, built in the 1880s, the wall the altar was up against was almost exactly due south.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Well, the geographic poles are the axis of rotation...

so having one of them at the top makes sense for the day/night terminator, kind of.

Otherwise, having N at the top is kind of arbitrary.

[BobSmith4152]

24. Well, it started out as arbitrary, then right handed European astronomers

were looking for a way to define and remember rotational North. So make a fist with your right hand. Your curled fingers point to the rotation of the object. (For the earth counterclockwise looking down from the north pole) Put your thumb up. Because the people writing these rules were European, their thumbs pointed to the arbitrary north.
Every planet except Venus and Uranus rotate, all in the same direction. Our solar system rotates, unsurprisingly also in the same direction. The Milky Way galaxy rotates in the opposite direction of our solar system.

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Chinese maps put south at top as well.

Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion map was designed to be oriented in all sorts of different ways, emphasizing one type of geographical feature or another, by rearranging the map segments like tiles. Many other maps of similar type have since been proposed.

When he first presented the map to children, one of them put south at the top. His reaction was to consider that as valid as traditional maps, since expanding viewpoints was the whole point of the map.

Maximum interconnectedness of land masses:


World Ocean configuration:

[dixiegrrrrl]

17. Thanks for taking the time to show those maps.

Interesting how different groups have a different perspective.

[Control-Z]

27. I decided to watch the clip because of

your comment. I miss West Wing too.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

28. In Australia, maps quite often have south at the top

I miss West Wing as well. I really wish we had Jed Bartlett as our president. Heck, Martin Sheen would probably be an improvement.

[elleng]

22. Thanks SO MUCH, Aristus; was thinking of this,

and hoping DUers knew about it!

[zipplewrath]

2. Africa

I'm always struck by how people don't understand just how big Africa is. You can fit the continental US inside of the Sahara desert.

[lastlib]

3. The hazards of projecting a 3-D curved surface onto a 2-D flat surface......

Look at poor little New Zealand!

[Marcuse]

5. Mercator map if the South Pole was in Australia

?

[mobeau69]

6. 11 Overlay Maps That Will Change The Way You See The World

https://www.businessinsider.com/map-overlays-comparing-size-2013-12

[FakeNoose]

11. These are cool too!

I like them all except the last one. There seems to be no point in comparing New York City and Monaco. (?)
Maybe superimposing Monaco over Manhattan might be interesting.

Thanks!

[yonder]

7. pretty cool, thanks

[ProfessorGAC]

8. I Have Seen The Greenland Thing Before

And i've seen other representations of real scale, but this is super cool.

It is amazing how oversized Greenland is though on the Mercator version.

It's about a quarter of the size by the time this thing rescales it.

[Sentath]

13. Ever since I learned of them I've liked the Waterman Butterfly and the Dymaxion

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

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

[Wounded Bear]

14. The Mercator projection was designed for east west navigation...

prior to an accurate way to actually determine longitude, which didn't happen until around 1800 IIRC. Latitude has been pretty easy for several centuries by use of a sextant to measure the heighth of the sun and some key stars above the horizon.

Prior to an easy way to determine longitude, ships tended to sail more north/south until the found the proper latitude for their destination, then turn to sail due west/east to get there. The last few hundred miles usually involved some dead reckoning based on coastal features.

All of that was kind of useless for long range flight, though, where polar projectionsare more efficient-the so-called Great Circle routes.

[DFW]

15. They can downsize Russia all they want

It is still one BIGASS place!

[eppur_se_muova]

18. Being centered on the Equator, Africa is least distorted. This graphic makes it clear how large ...

Africa really is -- the 2nd largest continent, after all.

In John Reader's "Africa: A Biography of the Continent", he shows a map in which the maps of the US, all of Europe outside of Russia, several other countries are ALL fit into the land area of Africa. There are simlar maps available around the Internet:

[world wide wally]

19. All the changes are in the northern hemisphere

[Dave Starsky]

30. Check out Chile, Argentina, and Australia.

The further you are from the Equator, the more you'll shrink.

Antarctica is ginormous, and it is not shown here.

[cemaphonic]

31. Other than Antarctica, there is not much land in the southern hemisphere south of 50

Which is where the distortions begin to be really noticeable.

[Xipe Totec]

20. Mafalda

[Sentath]

25. Huh, the one good thing I got out of No Man's Sky

I kinda lost my sense of being oriented BY the planet and now have an orientation TO the planet.

Lying on the couch is a lot more interesting if you consider it a close orbital maneuver ( ;

[lindysalsagal]

21. I'd like to see my ex run through that thing.

[sl8]

23. Mapfight, Africa vs. The Moon

Mapfight:
https://mapfight.appspot.com


Mspfight: Africa vs. Moon:
https://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-moon/africa-moon-size-comparison

[brush]

26. I've seen this before in still images. Look what the biggest continents are.