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The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

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Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#61

Post by hn993302 »

JdeBP wrote: post #59

I 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…

Even computer maps at the time like Google Earth had distortion around the poles, as if they were pieced together in slices. So that combined with the globe caps are why I never really knew what they looked like as a kid.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#62

Post by hn993302 »

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.

Yeah, the prime meridian selection is the actually colonial part of the Mercator map. It's not like they were trying to make Europe look big, but they were trying to make London central.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#63

Post by hn993302 »

dgellow wrote: post #4
AlexandrB wrote: post #3

What's the material difference between this and Trump's "my button is bigger"[1] nonsense or the renaming of various bodies of water? I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. My personal favourite equal-area projection is something like Boggs eumorph…

The main difference is that the UN didn’t force anything and isn’t unilaterally deciding what projection to use. The countries decided together to use a new default when showing the world map, that’s it. You can still use whatever projection you want, nothing will happen to you. > it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. That’s literally what the UN is for. The UN isn’t a supranational organization fi…

Trump didn't unilaterally decide what the rest of the world calls two bodies of water, only the US

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#64

Post by hn993302 »

dnautics wrote: post #36
neuronexmachina wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. This is kind of personally embarrassing, but due to seeing Mercator maps all the time growing up it wasn't until later in life that I realized that Greenland isn't actually a gigantic landmass the size of Af…

> 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.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#65

Post by ButlerianJihad »

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.

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.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#66

Post by lukeschlather »

AlexandrB wrote: post #3

What's the material difference between this and Trump's "my button is bigger"[1] nonsense or the renaming of various bodies of water? I know the UN claims that "Correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation." but it's purely symbolic and changes nothing geopolitically. My personal favourite equal-area projection is something like Boggs eumorph…

For the purposes I use world maps for, correct relative sizing is the paramount thing I'm looking for in a projection. I generally use it to give me a rough idea of distances. Boggs seems inferior, at a glance I have no idea how far it is from NYC to London, for example. I feel like Mercator is similarly bad in terms of distances being uniform. What do you use maps for where Boggs is superior?

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#67

Post by neuronexmachina »

hn993302 wrote: post #64
dnautics wrote: post #36

Earlier 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.

It's worth noting that Equal Earth isn't an equidistant projection. The upper bound on distance distortion is an order of magnitude less than Mercator's though.

Re: The UN challenges five centuries of cartography

#68

Post by ericmay »

frmersdog wrote: post #44

Oh, this is just getting started when it comes to upsetting traditionalists. I'd wager that the majority of map-reading happens on a screen these days, using software maps that can be rotated without changing the relative orientation of the labels. ...So why is it "Sub-Saharan Africa"? Why not "Super-Saharan Africa"? "Dexterous-Saharan Africa"? "Sinister-Saharan Africa?" It's all just convention (that just happens to…

Idk, I’m just going to call it Sub-American Africa
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