Us Country Superimposed Again Other Countries
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This was published six years agone
Interactive map tool shows the true size of the world'due south countries
By Inga Ting
Updated
A fascinating interactive map shows how different countries really compare in size – a problem that has for centuries stumped cartographers trying to show the spherical Earth on a flat piece of newspaper.
thetruesize.com aims to demonstrate just how much the Mercator project, the most common manner cartographers transform the globe into a 2-dimensional map, distorts the size of certain countries and, every bit a issue, the way we think well-nigh the world.
Planisphere made past Rumold Mercator in 1587. Rumold was the son of Gerardus Mercator, who invented the Mercator projection. Credit:Wikimedia Commons
"One of the most mutual criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (United states of america, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent)," write thetruesize.com creators James Talmage and Damon Maneice.
Deceptively big: Nine countries (including 3 superpowers) superimposed over Africa. Credit:truesize.com
"On the Mercator projection Greenland appears to be roughly the same size every bit Africa. In reality, Greenland is 2 million square kilometres and Africa is 30 1000000 square kilometres, virtually 14 and a half times larger."
The tool allows users to search for a country and then motion information technology around the map. Its size adjusts every bit it moves closer to, or further away from, the poles.
Map nerds will lose endless hours selecting countries to battle it out in the size stakes. These screenshots demonstrate the kind of fun you tin can take with Antarctica.
Antarctica appears gigantic in the Mercator project. Credit:truesize.com
The continent gets smaller as it moves towards the equator. Credit:truesize.com
Turns out Antarctica is smaller than Southward America. Credit:truesize.com
Other strangely gratifying activities include trying to fit equally many countries equally possible into the Southward American and African continents. As yous tin run across in the start image above, I managed to fit nine countries into Africa. (Geography nerds will be able to approximate from the outlines which countries they are. Everyone else volition observe the reply at the cease of this article.)
Cartographers take devised numerous ways of projecting the Earth onto a ii-dimensional map. Every projection has its weaknesses and the distortions inherent in the various historical projections oft betrayed, deliberately or otherwise, the bias of their creators. A map is, subsequently all, a way of looking at the world.
The medieval maps of Europe, for example, incorporated religious ideas, depicting Jerusalem at the centre and orienting the whole map to the Due east (where the sunday rises and the lost Garden of Eden was thought to lie).
By contrast, Arab maps by Muslim scholars such every bit Al-Idrisi advanced early Greek practices offset developed past Ptolemy in his volume Geography¸ written about 150 Advertisement. Ptolemy's maps were the first to use longitudinal and latitudinal lines.
Colton's 1852 map of the earth uses the Mercator project, cutting off the highly distorted poles. Printed for J & H Miller, Columbus, Ohio. Credit:Wikimedia Commons
The Mercator projection, developed in the 16th century by Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator, flattens the world by straightening the meridians (the imaginary lines encircling the globe and passing through both poles) and parallels (which run perpendicular to the meridians).
This was nifty for navigation merely not so useful for representing size and distance because the scale increases from the equator and becomes space at the poles.
This explains why Antarctica is so enormous and Africa so comparatively pocket-size in online maps such as Google and Bing, which use the Mercator projection. In fact, Africa (thirty million square kilometres) is more twice the size of Antarctica (fourteen 1000000 square kilometres).
The widespread use of the Mercator projection has been fiercely criticised as a sign of Euro-centric bias. In this projection, the northern European countries announced far larger and more ascendant than the countries in the due south. To rectify the problem, German historian Arno Peters developed the Galls-Peters projection, which distorts countries' shape but accurately shows their size. Notwithstanding, it was never widely used. (Compare the Mercator and Galls-Peters projections using this excellent map 'slider' past The Economist.)
Talmage and Maneice's interactive map stands in this tradition.
"It was inspired by an episode of The West Wing and an infographic past Kai Krause [institute here] entitled "The True Size of Africa"," they write on thetruesize.com.
"Nosotros hope teachers will use it to show their students just how big the world actually is."
* The nine countries are Mongolia (pink), Ukraine (cherry), the US (turquoise), Sweden (low-cal blue), the Britain (blue), India (yellow), Norway (regal), Finland (green) and China (orange).
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Source: https://www.smh.com.au/technology/interactive-map-tool-shows-the-true-size-of-the-worlds-countries-20150911-gjkcvy.html
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