UN votes to adopt new world map that shows Africa’s true scale
www.theguardian.com
Togo-sponsored resolution called to phase out traditional map that depicts continent as similar size to Greenland
  • KexPilot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    912·
    3 days ago

    “This discussion is not a political discussion [but] a scientific discussion, because there is scientific proof so we all have to accept the reality,” he said.

    Bit of a weird statement, haha. Of course it is political, the scientific reality is you cannot perfectly map a sphere to two dimensions… The political part is what we agree to sacrifice, and - in my opinion completely fairly - they want to take “relative land area” off the list of sacrifices.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      191·
      3 days ago

      No, we’ve got some pretty good ones…

      The map is made by equally dividing a spherical surface into 96 triangles, transferring it to a tetrahedron while maintaining area proportions, and unfolding it in the form of a rectangle: it is a polyhedral map projection. The map reduces the distortion of sizes and shapes of all continents and oceans, as inspired by the Dymaxion map. The projection does not have some of the major distortions of the Mercator projection, like the expansion of countries in far northern latitudes, and allows for Antarctica to be displayed accurately and in whole.[3]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AuthaGraph_projection

      If you try to make one part exact, the errors add up.

      If you account for the differences at a small scale, then no area is exact, but everything is pretty much correct.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          2 days ago

          Yeah, the current standard is just so bad, there can still be a lot of improvement while maintaining the general shape were used to.

      • Airfried@piefed.socialEnglish
        111·
        2 days ago

        That’s actually a pretty cool map, however I really don’t like how the focal point is on an empty blue mass, making it rather impractical. It’s also rather disorienting on the southern side. I don’t think this should be adopted at all. Cool nonetheless.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          112·
          2 days ago

          Buddy…

          Most of a globe is an empty blue mass…

          An accurate map, is also going to have a bunch of ocean on it.

          It looks weird to you, because that was your first time seeing it. You’d get used to it, and our familiarity with a shitty system should never be the reason to keep using it

          In a generation people would be posting our current maps and laughing at how ignorant we are and how weird it looked.

      • KexPilot@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        2 days ago

        Wow, this map is very interesting and cool! But I must state the obvious: cardinal directions very much lose meaning on this one haha, not even just a little like in some other good candidates :) And yes, we don’t need precise latitudes and longitudes anymore in these days for every-day map use - hence it is even possible to talk about changing to a more “fair” projection - , but looking in a school room at this map and trying to identify with children which direction Mexico is to Cuba becomes non-trivial. This is also a form of sacrifice in this context, which of course is up to discussion.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          The lines curve to the nearest pole.

          So you can get a general direction of north/south.

          But a “more local” map of even just a hemisphere can still be what we’re familiar with. The issue is how to get 100% of the surface of a sphere onto one flat page.

          That problem disappears when zooming in. So using this projection for anything besides the whole planet doesn’t make much sense.

          I mean, I’m not saying it’s easy to understand that there’s this for a global map and others for zoomed in maps, especially for an adult. But kids would pick it up quickly and understanding would build abstract thinking skills.

    • NotSteve_@lemmy.caEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      I think it’s preemptively calling it out because Conservatives are absolutely going to make a map projection political

    • Atomic@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      This may come as a shock to you. But it’s mathematically impossible to show the full surface of a sphere on a rectangle without distortion.

      The mercator projection has these smaller rectangles of “different sizes” across the map. There’s a reason for that. They show the distortion of size, in favour of highlighting shapes and angles of continents

      This “new” map will also have distortions. Though they will be far more difficult to show on the eckert IV projection, becase angles and shapes are now distorted, in favour of highlighting relative landmass.

      So what evidence or facts is it you’re talking about? Both are projections of a sphere onto a rectangle. There will always be distortion.

      • Doomsider@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Ahh we have another distortionist on our hands boys! These guys just won’t quit with all their facts and knowledge.

      • AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish
        21·
        2 days ago

        The age old question: Does this new map make my country look fat? Or more important? There is no single correct answer.

  • wrinkle2409@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    14·
    3 days ago

    You can’t map a sphere to a plane without distortion, it will always look off because their Gaussian curvatures aren’t the same. The best you can do is approximate it. I remember there is one type of map where they offload the distortions to the ocean so the countries look a bit better.

  • Atomic@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I really don’t care. But as far as i know. The landmass distortion on mercator is “corrected” by having boxes of “different sizes” across the map. Except that each box is actually respresenting the same km2

    I don’t know what image on the article is about.

    When looking into the eckert IV, this seems to be as accurate it gets

    Which i think is quite good. It’s a good compromise between shape and landmass, by NOT projecting it on a rectangle.

    Now compare this image, to the one in the article.

    It looks so stupid how they’re trying to overlay them while removing the context from both.

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    Mercator’s projection of Africa isn’t miserable; what really fucks up is the Alaska/Greenland/Australia stuff that annoys me with it.

  • apparia@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    Why not the 150E meridian so New Zealand can finally have its revenge?

    Google Maps

    Not sure what they’re gonna do, interactive maps are pretty tied to Mercator unless you want weird distortions.

    • balsoft@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      Interactive maps actually have the opportunity to do the right thing and just show you a globe on lower zoom levels. Wrapping a texture around a sphere is trivial for almost all hardware nowadays. That’s how I have my OsmAnd set up and it doesn’t impact performance at all. It’s a shame that not enough maps do that.

      • apparia@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        10·
        2 days ago

        Mercator preserves angles and straight lines. Wherever you zoom or pan on a Mercator map, north is still at the top, east to the right, etc. By contrast, for a projection without those properties (which is basically none except minor variants of Mercator), north is going to shift around depending on where you’re looking.

        By way of example, here’s Auckland in the Equal Earth projection the article discusses, with north marked:

        spoiler

        It’s significantly tilted and actually slightly curved. This is not useful for navigation, or really anything except exactly what Togo wants to achieve (which in general is exactly what you want for the sorts of global maps the UN is likely to make): knowing that any two areas that are the same size on the map are the same size in real life.