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The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

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Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#261

Post by goodcanadian »

gchadwick wrote: post #237
goodcanadian wrote: post #173

Decades ago, when I was a child, I viewed the Mercator projection as old fashioned and stupid. In fact, I rarely saw it. Most maps were Robinson's projection ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_projection ). It baffles me that anyone still uses Mercator projection for any serious purpose.

> It baffles me that anyone still uses Mercator projection for any serious purpose. Tell me you've never done any serious navigation off a map or chart without telling me...

Ha. I have, and it probably was Mercator or something close to it . . . I probably should have clarified that I meant world maps (or continent scale, at least) where I would argue it's a pretty shit projection even for navigation purposes.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#262

Post by XorNot »

bentley wrote: post #251
XorNot wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it also accurately depicts relative land mass sizes? For the purposes of the UN that seems fairly relevant compared to Mercator which is a good map if you're actually navigating a coast line but atrocious if you're trying to gauge how big the territory you're talking about actually is.

> I mean it also accurately depicts relative land mass sizes? At the cost of distorting shapes and distances. > compared to Mercator The UN resolution compared Equal Earth to Mercator, a comparison Equal Earth easily wins in many circumstances. But the comparison should not be to Mercator, but to other widely used projections that do a better job of minimizing distortions generally, such as Winkel Tripel. The UN reso…

For the purposes of an organization concerned with the demography of actual people, what is the value Winkel Tripel is bringing at the scales it would be used in general application?

Because if you have a specific application then you choose the correct projection for the application.

But if you're just showing a world map, then what's important?

For the UN I'd say relative land mass size is a pretty relevant measure since that's where people live, and where environmental policy takes effect at the level of nation states it deals with.

And it's also the change you can actually pass in a highly subjective area: a slightly different projection no one wants to vote for isn't a viable option in the first place.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#263

Post by prmph »

c048 wrote: post #143
JuniperMesos wrote: post #129

I never had the impression that the Mercator projection, or indeed any particular world map projection out of the dozens in common use, had any kind of official status that needed to be removed. It seems obvious to me that different map projections have different tradeoffs, and that any particular publisher of a world map can and does use whichever one makes sense for the information they're trying to convey.

This was also exactly what I was taught in school when I was 10 years old. We also saw examples of other maps from other parts in the world that put their location front and center. That this map is a derivative of "a decolonization map", should be clear to anyone that this is just political posturing and not anything of actual use.

No, the Mercator map has been the world map you'd see everywhere by default, and it is not that useful except for sailing, which most of us are not doing

This is a correction to that.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#264

Post by everybodyknows »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #153
edoceo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just use KM? We should reduce the number of units of measure in 2026.

Because nautical miles is an angle measurement which then happens to be 1852 meters when you break it down.

A nautical mile is roughly one minute of latitude. Every blue-water sailor has heard "a minute's a mile" -- although that's hardly even half-correct.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#265

Post by mrguyorama »

masswerk wrote: post #194

Goode homolosine projection, which enjoyed some popularity in the "Space Age", deserves a mention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goode_homolosine_projection

I loved this one as a kid in first grade because it just makes it so clear and obvious what the problem even is! I didn't need diagrams pretending to inflate a balloon in a cylinder, or an animate gif warping from globe to flat.

Just, oh of course, like an orange peel!

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#266

Post by simonra »

prmph wrote: post #263
c048 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was also exactly what I was taught in school when I was 10 years old. We also saw examples of other maps from other parts in the world that put their location front and center. That this map is a derivative of "a decolonization map", should be clear to anyone that this is just political posturing and not anything of actual use.

No, the Mercator map has been the world map you'd see everywhere by default, and it is not that useful except for sailing, which most of us are not doing This is a correction to that.

What are the practical uses of a world scale map beyond sailing? I mean they could be neat for visualizing some useful route calculated as vectors and further used as vectors, but it would still be of mostly an aesthetic value, appealing to the viewers emotions, which could be achieved just as well with some palm oil and sugar.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#267

Post by prmph »

decimalenough wrote: post #38

It'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.

Well, I'm sure people wish Africa wasn't so smack dab in the center, haha. But, you can't ignore it without making Europe also peripheral, not unless you exchange longitude for latitude and vice versa.

And fun fact, Ghana is the country closest to point where the prime meridian intersects the equator.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#268

Post by nickdothutton »

respectattentio wrote: post #236
holgerschurig wrote: post #151

Weird title. Cargography constantly challenged itself. Look at some of the possible projections at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projections They all compromise on something to enhance something else. You simply can't map the surface of a 3d shere (approximation of the earths globe) onto a 2d flat surface. And so we have projections galore. And anyway was (and is) always free to use whatever fits best.

It is insane how the big mistake lasted. After seeing each country before and after side by side on a website, it's insane how big the difference in false sizes of countries compared. Like Greenland vs Africa, come on man!! This must be a joke (and still lasted 457 years).

I thought everyone learned the Mercator use case in school? It is for marine navigation. A line of constant bearing will always appear straight on it. If you want to see the relative size of continents that's a different use case and you need a different projection.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#269

Post by perrygeo »

Yes mercator distorts size at high latitudes. But it preserves angles which is more important for many (most?) mapping applications. Literally no one is using a mercator projection to determine size at the continental scale. We use mercator for navigation and for local maps. It keeps everything at right angles. Roads that run N-S look like vertical lines. If something is to the lower-left, that's south-west. These characteristics make it ideal for most maps.

The UN has only one mapping application - to equitably portray the world's country boundaries. In the larger space of potential maps, this is pretty niche. As a result, they need a niche projection.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#270

Post by Citizen_Lame »

respectattentio wrote: post #236
holgerschurig wrote: post #151

Weird title. Cargography constantly challenged itself. Look at some of the possible projections at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projections They all compromise on something to enhance something else. You simply can't map the surface of a 3d shere (approximation of the earths globe) onto a 2d flat surface. And so we have projections galore. And anyway was (and is) always free to use whatever fits best.

It is insane how the big mistake lasted. After seeing each country before and after side by side on a website, it's insane how big the difference in false sizes of countries compared. Like Greenland vs Africa, come on man!! This must be a joke (and still lasted 457 years).

Do you even why the Mercator projection is still being used? And no, it's not a mistake.
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