The ‘world’ as we are taught, it is a surrealistic map of the world..
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The Peters Map and The Mercator Map
petersmap.com
Which is bigger, Greenland or China? With the traditional Mercator map (circa 1569, and still in use in many schoolrooms and boardrooms today), Greenland and China look the same size. But in reality China is almost 4 times larger! In response to such discrepancies, Dr. Arno Peters created a new world map that dramatically improves the accuracy of how we see the Earth.
Mercator's projection (created at a time when navigators were sailing on the oceans in wooden ships, powered by the wind, and navigating by the stars) was particularly useful because straight lines on his projection were lines of constant compass bearing. Today the Mercator projection still remains useful for navigational purposes and is referred to by seafarers and airline pilots.
The Mercator is also a "conformal" map projection. This means that it shows shapes pretty much the way they appear on the globe. The mapmaker's dilemma is that you cannot show both shape and size accurately. If you want a true shape for the land masses you will necessarily sacrifice proportionality, i.e., the relative sizes will be distorted.
The actual 'size' map of the world looks like this..
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The Peters Projection World Map is one of the most stimulating, and controversial, images of the world. When this map was first introduced by historian and cartographer Dr. Arno Peters at a Press Conference in Germany in 1974 it generated a firestorm of debate. The first English-version of the map was published in 1983, and it continues to have passionate fans as well as staunch detractors.
The Peters Map of the World (1974) shows the earth's geographic relationships better than the standard Mercator map (c. 1569), which is what we all likely grew up with. In this map, land masses and nations are shown in true proportion. For example, the sheer physical enormity of Africa is clear. The traditional Mercator map seriously distorts physical geography, vastly over-representing the northern hemisphere and under-representing the southern hemisphere. In the Mercator projection, as another example, Greenland, which has 0.8 million square miles, is shown as being equal to Africa, which has 11.6 million square miles.
The Peters Map site has an interesting short discussion of maps:
"The earth is round. The challenge of any world map is to represent a round earth on a flat surface. There are literally thousands of map projections. Each has certain strengths and corresponding weaknesses. Choosing among them is an exercise in values clarification: you have to decide what's important to you. That is generally determined by the way you intend to use the map. The Peters Projection is an area accurate map."
Important Characteristics of the Peters Map
Fairness to All Peoples In actual size the North is 18.9 million square miles and the South is 38.6 million square miles, however on a Mcerator map the two neary look equa..http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/maps/page10.html
In the complex and interdependent world in which nations now live, the people of the world deserve and need an accurate portrayal of the world.
The Peters Map is the map for our day.
World mission and aid-giving agencies use the Peters map because it serves to represent the developing countries at their true proportion. The Peters map has been widely adopted elsewhere, but remains a curiosity in the United States. Why is this? Among related factors are these: (1) our resistance to join the rest of the world on the metric system (even the British have changed from inches and fahrenheit to centimeters and celsius), (2) national surveys showing U.S. schoolchildren have among the lowest levels of geography awareness of all developed nations, and (3) many professional cartographers have resented the "politicization" of their field. Arno Peters was one of the first to assert that maps are unavoidably political. |
