91–100 of 351 posts
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…
You cannot have both area fidelity and shape fidelity to represent countries on a map.
If you want area fidelity, the Gall-Peters [1] projection and the Peters world map [2] (1952) by Arno Peters are the way to visualize countries, whereas common maps focus on shape-fidelity.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Peters?useskin=vector [2] https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/map-of-the-world-peters-p...
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)…
> 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! That's the point of the post. The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts because th…
Also, using a (truncated) Mercator projection for a GDP per capita map (or any political map that isn't about land mass) is not a bad idea as its most notorious flaw becomes an advantage because coincidently, it tends to enlarge small countries and shrink large countries, which makes for a more readable map.
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)…
> 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! That's the point of the post. The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts because th…
Not true. They're honestly discussed all the time to the point of becoming tiresome.
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…
At best you could argue it puts humans relatively close to the center, but the geocentric model also operates with a smaller solar system.
And the implied “closer to the center is better” is not justified. E.g. Dante literally puts the devil in the middle of the universe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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! That's the point of the post. The trade-offs between different projections are rarely discussed, considered or even mentioned outside very small cohorts because th…
The problem with these kind of posts is that they also ignore the existence of globes. No one should be surprised by the "size" of any country because globes already exist which are a pretty close to true representation.
Great collection of illustrations.
A friend asked, cleverly aware of the distance involved, if the flight went east or west -- because if you have Flat Map Brain, that's what you default to, right?
The answer is "neither."
The route went mostly north from Houston, crossed Canada and began trending south (without turning!) over / around Iceland; we approached Dubai from the north, more or less.
I remember the flight back home going over Iran, but it was at least a decade ago and regional tensions may have made them change that. This site
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE211
shows them avoiding Iranian airspace now, but the flight path seems otherwise about the same.
It isn't just the projections that distort our perception. North being up and south being down is so ubiquitous that it seems like Earth (and the Solar System) has a top side and a bottom side. But that's just a convention. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160614-maps-have-north-...
Well, if you define up and down as the axis perpendicular to the ecliptic, there is an up and down in the solar system.
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's why I put this map on my kid's wall: https://www.natgeomaps.com/re-world-classic-pacific-centered We live in Europe where the default map is Atlantic-centric so I wanted to make sure he got a different perspective.