I’ve seen a (non) literal billion maps with different depictions of how large Africa is. I gather that it is actually far larger than the United States, but it doesn’t usually seem to be depicted that way. This seriously confuses me. ISS flyovers give a good idea of the difference. Why are so many maps disproportionate?
In: Technology
because the earth is a 3D oblong spheroid and maps are two dimensional. Flattening a 3d object into 2d causes distortions it can’t be helped there’s no agenda behind it. The edges are stretched out and the center is contracted. Want an accurate map? buy a globe.
Oh the reason asia is cut in half and the americas are dead center on some maps? it’s an ocean map. This map was meant to show the atlantic and pacific oceans whole it isn’t american ego… if memory serves it may be british in origin.
The problem is that the world is not in fact flat.
The only way to accurately represent the world without distortions is a globe.
Any 2D map will have some distortions when trying to represent the surface of a 3D sphere.
Many of the more common types of world map come from use in navigation and similar and compromised in areas such as showing equal sized areas equally sized.
Other types of maps try to not distort areas, but end up being horribly distorted in other ways.
You can’t have a 100% accurate world map.
Since there is little demand for maps accurately comparing the unihabitated frozen wastes of Greenland with the size of the uinhabitaded Sahara desert most common maps get that wrong.
The solution is not to blame imperialism for purposefully trying to downplay the size of Africa, but to choose the right tool for the right job.
If you want a map that shows everything the correct size use something like Gall-Peters, just don’t act surprised if a square plot of land looks like a squashed rectangles on it.
Wanted to add to the other two posts that the reason Africa in particular gets so distorted into a smaller size is because so much of it is in close proximity to the equator. When converting to a 2D surface in a lot of projections, the space and shape near the equator becomes smaller and the spaces near the poles becomes larger. This is also why Greenland appears huge AF.
Adding this clip because it’s always a good watch.
It wasn’t an evil and intentional conspiracy to diminish Africa’s standing in the world.
The Mercator projection is good for navigators, because you can read correct compass headings off it. That’s basically why it became a popular type of map.
Something has to give when you put a 3D surface onto a 2D sheet of paper, either the proportions or the orientations. People who wanted to sail from A to B chose the map that gave them correct orientation.
There’s no clean way to convert from a sphere to a flat drawing. Different maps use different methods of conversion, but each method tends to distort certain continents by making them look bigger or smaller. You can read about the Mercator projection for more details.
Africa is not made smaller (on most maps), instead stuff that is further away from Africa is made bigger.
Most map projections designed to display the whole world, are more accurate near the equator and get more and more distored further away from it.
Latest Answers