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Mercator map
+3
Submitted by azerifactory on August 24, 2025
On the Mercator map, Russia looks bigger than Africa but in reality, Africa is almost twice the size. Same goes with Greenland, when Africa is 14 times larger than that territory.
The African Union now supports replacing the Mercator projection with maps that reflect Africa’s true size.
For me, Mercator map is good to learn about basics but when you look more into depth, it does reinforces a Eurocentric worldview by exaggerating the Global North.
Any thoughts?
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But unless you're on a sailboat, it's probably better to use a map that doesn't distort as much. For the world map, we use the equirectangular projection.
This still distorts area, but not nearly as much.
Do you think you want a true equal area projection? See what they look like first.
There are other rectangular maps which give a realistic picture of the globe, without Mercator’s projection. ( It’s called Peter’s projection.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection#/media/File%253AGall%E2%80%93Peters_projection_SW.jpg
I think both maps should be used and taught, side by side. Moreover, globes, the most realistic maps of all, should be used a lot more!