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Time to rethink what I "know" about geography... (1 Viewer)

CharlesD

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All maps have some sort of "distortion". After all you cannot represent a (roughly) spherical object on a rectangle without introducing some sort of distortion. The particular projection used to make a map implies certain distortions.
The Mercator projection is useful because a line drawn between two points on it corresponds to a constant compass heading, useful to navigators. Other projections have other specific uses and other specific distortions.
The projection linked to above is not anything revolutionary, it is simply an equal-area projection. It is not useful for navigation, but is useful for comparing land-areas.
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Cees Alons

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This was a - more or less - political novelty some 5 or 8 years ago. The developing countries were supposed to be robbed of their true size.
Of course, some people think it's not THAT important how large an area looks on a certain map. One seldom uses a map of the whole earth to form one's opinion on important political matters (or almost anything else).
BTW: it introduces it's own distortion: no area now has the proper form. It looks like a widescreen image presented on a 4x3 screen
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Cees
 

PatrickM

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Would it also surprise you that in land area British Columbia is bigger than California, Oregon and Washington put together?
Patrick
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Joseph DeMartino

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Who would have guessed China is 4x the size of Greenland, or South America is almost 2x as big as Europe?
I'm not sure that anyone would have "guessed" this, but most people would know it from looking at a globe or photographs from Earth in orbit. Or from reading anything about China, Greenland, Europe or South America, which would have conveyed at least some sense of their relative size. Or from paying enough attention in geography class to understand the Mercator and other projections used in map-making. :)
Regards,
Joe
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