I vibe-coded up an animated transition between Mercator and Equal Earth (using D3) the other day, if anyone's interested in that comparison: https://tools.simonwillison.net/equal-earth
Very cool, Its interesting to see what happens to Antarctica.
The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
101–110 of 324 posts
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection. What sort of tasks besides a size measuring contest is an equal area projection good for?
Besides size, there's distance. Like it's annoying how UK and France look much further apart than they actually are, and every sea/air route appears to not take the shortest path. I'd be fine with this change if it weren't about trying to make Africa look more important. They're just fixing a misleading map.
Equal area projections don't preserve distance.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the task here?
Casually looking at a map to understand relatively how far away things are from each other
Unless your eye can casually assemble great circle routes it's hopeless on any projection except the radial one (and then only for routes emanating from one spot)
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#104I came across AuthaGraph projection some time ago and got hooked to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AuthaGraph_projection
A version of it including political borders my desktop wallpaper for a long time, until I decided to not change default wallpaper on my new devices anymore.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#105Calling it Equal Earth was a bad move. The word “equal” has tons of baggage. Why not call it something less incendiary like Actual Earth or something? What ever happened to being pragmatic?
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#106I feel like people are making more of a fuss about this then it is. The UNGA isn't a body that controls what maps its member states use. They can make the recommendation of course, but it has yet to be seen if anyone follows it.
Yeah, that's my thoughts as well. The answer is literally in the article:
> Mercator useful for sailing
This is the only correct answer, and everything else is unscientific nonsense. It hasn't been replaced because... it just hasn't. Mercator + knots + nautical miles is a system that is extremely useful for navigation. Since we aren't sailing ships around a whole lot anymore, a lot of teachers forget to mention the relationship between the three. I imagine that was more common knowledge back in the day.
That being said, I do like the new proposed projection for how we use maps today. I think another useful tool would simply be overlay maps.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#107I read the article thinking that it was not going to mention Dymaxion. Articles like this rarely do. The BBC has an article on the U.N. resolution ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly5r60v4mro ), and it does not. And then right at the bottom it went and mentioned Dymaxion. Dymaxion is one of the few projections that actually shows Antarctica with something resembling its actual shape. Interestingly, to counter t…
That's why I got my kids $1 inflatable globes. You can see the poles just fine.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#108I feel like people are making more of a fuss about this then it is. The UNGA isn't a body that controls what maps its member states use. They can make the recommendation of course, but it has yet to be seen if anyone follows it.
Yeah, that's my thoughts as well. The answer is literally in the article: > Mercator useful for sailing This is the only correct answer, and everything else is unscientific nonsense. It hasn't been replaced because... it just hasn't. Mercator + knots + nautical miles is a system that is extremely useful for navigation. Since we aren't sailing ships around a whole lot anymore, a lot of teachers forget to mention the r…
Why not just use KM? We should reduce the number of units of measure in 2026.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#109Calling it Equal Earth was a bad move. The word “equal” has tons of baggage. Why not call it something less incendiary like Actual Earth or something? What ever happened to being pragmatic?
It’s been called Equal Earth since 2018. The word “equal” here (likely?) refers to the fact it’s an equal-area projection, although it could be politically charged.
Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography
#110It's kind of funny how the colonial convenience of having the 0 longitude line pass through Greenwich, UK ends up making Africa the most prominent place on the world map, since the centerpoint (0,0) is just off the African coast. This was true with Mercator as well, but Equal Earth emphasizes just how huge the African continent actually is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_meridians The Washington meridians are four meridians that were used as prime meridians in the United States which pass through Washington, D.C.
This is the source of my favorite border dispute.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Tahoe#Interstate_boundary...
In summary there is a border dispute between California and Nevada, It was exacerbated by some surveying errors but the real problem appears to be the definitions of the sate borders, California was defined using one method(120 degrees longitude west of Greenwich) and Nevada was defined using another method (37 degrees longitude west of Washington) at the time it was thought these two methods were equivalent but it later turned out they are not. Congress does not have the authority to change state borders so it is up to the states to reach an agreement. and they have not. So the dispute is still technically on going.
Researching this also lead to the most hilarious passive aggressive thing I have seen in a constitution.
"All territory lying West of and adjoining the boundary line herein prescribed, which the State of California may relinquish to the Territory or State of Nevada, shall thereupon be embraced within and constitute a part of this State."
We really wanted that area east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, they would form a perfect natural boundary, but CA has already claimed it. If CA ever wants to give it up we want to make sure it is explicitly in the constitution to accept it.