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Maps distort how we see the world

unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com

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Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#21

Post by retrac »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #12

One of my favorite talks by Carl Sagan talks about the geocentric conceit, and how one manifestation of that is how most civilizations tend to put themselves at the center of the map. There are certainly some good reasons to put yourself there. Most planning for your civilization that calls for a map is going to use “home” as a starting point and you’ll go “out” from there. But it’s still a fun observation. I liked t…

That reminds me of this contemporary Chinese world map: https://priorprobability.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/img_536...

It's meant for shipping lanes, mostly. So it puts China in the centre. The shortest route to European and American markets are approximately straight lines. And the Panama canal is at the edge of the world.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#22

Post by grogenaut »

HPsquared wrote: post #11

https://earth.nullschool.net has a range of different projections available (on top of the main functionality of the site, which is itself a pretty cool map of wind/weather/atmospheric patterns). The cool thing is that you can pan the map in the different projections, which isn't possible with most maps: most tend to be static images.

Pretty cool to think about the amount of work going on behind the covers to alter these projections on the fly. And how costly it was to build them originally by hand.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#23

Post by kibwen »

Preserving the relative proportions of the continents while also emphasizing how the continents nearly form one giant supercontinent is why I prefer the Dymaxion projection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map

It works by projecting the earth onto an icosahedron (a D20) and then unfolding it. Distortion is fairly low and roughly equal across all the continents; here's a graphic that demonstrates the relative distortion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map#/media/File:Dymax...

Honorable mention to the Peirce quincuncial projection, which both tiles the plane and also cleverly arranges the continents to concentrate distortion into the oceans, as an alternative aesthetic projection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peirce_quincuncial_projection

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#24

Post by jgeada »

Every flat map projection distorts something, so every projection has to optimize some parameter and trade off other utility. I'm constantly amazed at how hung up people are on apparent size of countries. If size is your thing, use some other projection!

Mercator is and remains popular because it preserves local angles and shapes, which makes it simple use this projection to navigate by rhumb lines (compass headings). Because most maps people are exposed to are designed for navigation, it is the most commonly seen projection. And yes, it distorts size and is largely unusable past about ± 70º latitude. Every map is a compromise.

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#26

Post by simonbw »

kibwen wrote: post #23

Preserving the relative proportions of the continents while also emphasizing how the continents nearly form one giant supercontinent is why I prefer the Dymaxion projection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map It works by projecting the earth onto an icosahedron (a D20) and then unfolding it. Distortion is fairly low and roughly equal across all the continents; here's a graphic that demonstrates the relative d…

I see that you like Isaac Asimov, XML, and shoes with toes.

https://xkcd.com/977/

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#27

Post by [deleted] »

chippiewill wrote: post #17
randcraw wrote: post #10

There was a memorable scene from "The West Wing" on the biases imposed by most map projections, in particular, how Mercator makes North America look huge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI

Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of the White House, had a two-ton block of cheese. It was there, for any and all who were hungry, it was there for the voiceless.

[deleted]

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#28

Post by [deleted] »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #12

One of my favorite talks by Carl Sagan talks about the geocentric conceit, and how one manifestation of that is how most civilizations tend to put themselves at the center of the map. There are certainly some good reasons to put yourself there. Most planning for your civilization that calls for a map is going to use “home” as a starting point and you’ll go “out” from there. But it’s still a fun observation. I liked t…

[deleted]

Re: Maps distort how we see the world

#29

Post by placesalt »

I agree with many other comments here that this is more an effect of the practical purpose that maps are created for than any presumed nefarious motivation. Look at the list of supported projections in the PROJ database - it's a very long list, and they're all there to solve some particular problem.

Also, it's worth acknowledging that projections like the Robinson projection are often used now instead of Mercator on general-purpose wall maps.

Since the topic came up, this is one of my favourite special-purpose global maps: a map of global ocean circulation, centred around Antarctica: https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/c4et3x/global_ocea...

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