Mercator Misconceptions: Clever Map Shows the True Size of Countries

Maps are hugely important tools in our everyday life, whether it’s guiding our journeys from point A to B, or shaping our big picture perceptions about geopolitics and the environment.

For many people, the Earth as they know it is heavily informed by the Mercator projection – a tool used for nautical navigation that eventually became the world’s most widely recognized map.

MERCATOR’S RISE TO THE TOP

With any map projection style, the big challenge lies in depicting a spherical object as a 2D graphic. There are various trade-offs with any map style, and those trade-offs can vary depending on how the map is meant to be used.

In 1569, the great cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, created a revolutionary new map based on a cylindrical projection. The new map was well-suited to nautical navigation since every line on the sphere is a constant course, or loxodrome.

GEOGRAPHIC INFLATION

The vast majority of us aren’t using paper maps to chart our course across the ocean anymore, so critics of the Mercator projection argue that the continued use of this style of map gives users a warped sense of the true size of countries – particularly in the case of the African continent.

Mercator’s map inadvertently also pumps up the sizes of Europe and North America. Visually speaking, Canada and Russia appear to take up approximately 25% of the Earth’s surface, when in reality they occupy a mere 5%.

As the animated gif below – created by Reddit user, neilrkaye – demonstrates, northern nations such as Canada and Russia have been artifiically “pumped up” in the minds of many people around the world.

Greenland, which appears as a massive icy continent in Mercator projection, shrinks way down. The continent of Africa takes a much more prominent position in this new, correctly-scaled map.

Despite inaccurate visual features – or perhaps because of them – the Mercator projection achieved widespread adoption around the world. This includes the classroom, where young minds are first learning about geography and forming opinions on relationships between countries.

GETTING REACQUAINTED WITH GLOBES

Google, whose map app is used by approximately 150 million people per month, recently took the bold step of overlaying their map onto a globe. This change sidesteps projection issues completely and displays the world as it actually is: round.

Greenland’s projection is no longer the size of Africa.
– Google Maps team

As people become more accustomed to equal area maps and seeing the Earth in its spherical form, misconceptions about the size of continents may become a thing of the past.

http://www.visualcapitalist.co...e-size-of-countries/

I think I got screwed in all that acreage I bought in Greenland.

The African continent is enormous but what's really surprising is how big Australia is. It's almost as big as the USA. It was years after high school before I was really aware of the real size of the continents.

Hey now, it's not the size of the ship, it's the motion of the ocean.

Besides, the cold countries in that map are suffering from significant shrinkage!

H&K-Guy

Those northern countries shrink a lot.

It’s the cold, Jerry. It causes shrinkage. Like a frightened turtle.

That’s a nice informative graphic, but recognizing the Mercator distortions is hardly new. Back when there was actually a high school course called “geography,” and even before, our teachers pointed that out by having us compare the size of Greenland with Mexico on a globe. That was in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

Australia is way bigger than I thought.

Thanks for the informative article. It’s easy to forget simple things like this that shape our worldview.

Is there a correctly scaling version that doesn’t separate the land borders?

It isnt possible to show the true sizes on a 2d projection and keep the borders connected.

In true scale size, with connected borders, the image becomes a sphere.

Neat graphic.

OTOH...my anecdotal evidence is that Japanese and Europeans really do not understand how large the USA really is.

For example, being in Central KY and asking how they can go to Disney "this afternoon".

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:
In true scale size, with connected borders, the image becomes a sphere.

That’s the whole problem with any method that tries to depict the spherical surface of the Earth on a flat map. The Mercator projection doesn’t “inadvertently” increase the size of land masses near the poles, that’s an unavoidable result of keeping it flat and everything connected. There are other mapping projections that don’t distort the land masses as much, but they don’t permit everything to be connected the same way. They often split the oceans to keep the land areas more correct.

The Mercator projection dates back nearly 450 years and its advantage is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, that “any straight line on a Mercator projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.” If you’re navigating across the ocean, the fact that a map distorts sizes isn’t very important.

I like the moat between the southern US and Mexico. . .

I didn't know about this Thanks for enlightening me.

I found this website which lets you search countries and move them around, you can search multiple countries to highlight and move them to the equator or stack them over each other for true size comparison, lotta fun.

compare country sizes

When I taught geography, I would have them draw a true map to scale using actual measurements. You could always tell the students who just traced it and those that actually worked out the scale.

A whole continent just missing. Antarctica is as big as the USA and Mexico combined

quote:

That’s a nice informative graphic, but recognizing the Mercator distortions is hardly new. Back when there was actually a high school course called “geography,” and even before, our teachers pointed that out by having us compare the size of Greenland with Mexico on a globe. That was in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

Most students cannot name the states and capitols any more. We had to learn the names of the countries in Africa and do reports on them. So much for world view these days.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by Ken226:
In true scale size, with connected borders, the image becomes a sphere.

That’s the whole problem with any method that tries to depict the spherical surface of the Earth on a flat map. The Mercator projection doesn’t “inadvertently” increase the size of land masses near the poles, that’s an unavoidable result of keeping it flat and everything connected. There are other mapping projections that don’t distort the land masses as much, but they don’t permit everything to be connected the same way. They often split the oceans to keep the land areas more correct.

The Mercator projection dates back nearly 450 years and its advantage is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, that “any straight line on a Mercator projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course.” If you’re navigating across the ocean, the fact that a map distorts sizes isn’t very important.

A straight line on a Mercator projection does keep a constant bearing, but the route is not the shortest--Great Circle routes tend to be bowed toward the poles.

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

That’s a nice informative graphic, but recognizing the Mercator distortions is hardly new. Back when there was actually a high school course called “geography,” and even before, our teachers pointed that out by having us compare the size of Greenland with Mexico on a globe. That was in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

Most students cannot name the states and capitols any more. We had to learn the names of the countries in Africa and do reports on them. So much for world view these days.

I gave up trying to know the countries in Africa--they kept changing the borders and names so often I couldn't keep track.

flashguy

Wow look how much Russia shrinks God Bless