The Lies of the Mercator World Map
A give-and-take of benefits has been a perennial problem in cartography. The issue is due to projection, which in map-making results from trying to turn a spherical globe into a flat plane. The biggest challenge is that it is impossible to portray the reality of the spherical world on a flat map – a problem that has haunted cartographers for centuries
One of the most popular projections is the Mercator, but of course, it too has its flaws. In truth, Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland, and is larger than the U.S.A., Europe, China and most of India combine.
Many now
far prefer a relative size world map that doesn’t exaggerate the size of things in the northern hemisphere (like the world “superpowers”). However the Mercator map is the standard in nautical navigation due to it being designed partially to preserve true compass bearing in between any two points. But that still doesn’t justify teaching it as the only world map in schools.
