UN votes to adopt new world map to reflect Africa's true size

Gordon_R said:
For those interested in how this map projection works. It is inspired by the similar Robinson projection:
en.wikipedia.org

Equal Earth projection - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
960px-Equal_Earth_projection_SW.jpg
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Antarctica looks cool in that one.
 
Mind boggling that some people seem to think an accurate geographical representation of the earth is "woke nonsense" / "what's the point of this nonsense".

Sometimes life also needs to move on and be updated despite all the nonsense occurring in the world. Don't think this is a huge deal but I also don't have an issue with it.
 
R13... said:
Kind of hypocritical of the current US regime who have worked to make the world less peaceful and busy disrupting the world economy with their war mongering etc.
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Whatever their shortcomings in foreign policy, do you actually disagree with their reasoning that is virtue signalling nonsense? Perhaps third world nations should focus on why their countries are still poor, corrupt and useless despite billions in aid over the past few decades?
 
So the map is supposed to show supremacy in the opposite direction?

We live on big landmass therefore we are special?

It was never the intention of Mercator to do that. I've never looked at the map and thought oh Europe is so biiiig. Africa is so small.

Yes Greenland does look incredibly huge. But who cares about Greenland.
 
saor said:
Mind boggling that some people seem to think an accurate geographical representation of the earth is "woke nonsense" / "what's the point of this nonsense".

Sometimes life also needs to move on and be updated despite all the nonsense occurring in the world. Don't think this is a huge deal but I also don't have an issue with it.
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In fact, the new map isn't accurate either.

The UN’s favoured map projection, called the ‘Equal Earth Map’ has its own distortions. In trying to preserve the surface area of different parts of the globe it ends up flattening landmasses so much that they become unrecognisable. Greenland then appears wider than it is tall. As for Antarctica, it appears impossibly stretched. It is interesting to see the world depicted in all sorts of ways on paper. If you want to educate children about geography, on the other hand, there is no substitute for a globe which you can spin around and appreciate not just where places are but why we have seasons – because the Earth’s axis is tilted relative to a plane on which the Earth and Sun sit.
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Of course, there was a very good reason that had little do with colonialism as to why the map was adopted:

Nevertheless, there is a very good reason why it was widely adopted after being invented by the Flemish cartographer Geradus Mercator in the 16th century, and it has nothing to do with its inventor being able to say: gosh, isn’t Flanders just enormous! It was adopted because it makes navigation much simpler. Draw a straight line on a Mercator map and you have just drawn a ‘rhumb line’ – which is a route across the Earth’s surface following a constant bearing. In other words, draw a straight line, say, from Plymouth, England to Georgetown, Guyana, and that is the line you will follow if you set out across the Atlantic following a consistent compass bearing of 225 degrees.
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Supervan II said:
Quite appropriate, methinks.

Africa: From what was thought of once as a BIG f-up in the past, now depicted as the BIGGER f-up it actually is.
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I see it's a leaner version of Africa. It used to be more plump, now less fatty tissue. Is that not sort of pandering to those old Ethiopian starvation relief stereotypes?
 
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