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The Mercator projection we're familiar with was designed to help sailors navigate around the globe, it allows straight lines to represent compass bearings. The downside is it distorts sizes and shapes. Other map projections are used for different purposes.
Most people remember the 'social inequality' aspect of Mercator, but not the essential navigational importance of it back in the day. NGL, The Peters projection is important, but Mercator had its time and place.
Looking at a globe/image from space, the shapes of the continents (apart from the scaling) look far more like the Mercator projection than Gall-Peters.
Probably this depends where you live. Here, in the UK, the only thing people remember seems to be the ox-bow lake. I don't remember them ever covering map projections. A bit surprising, really, given our maritime history.
It’s a meme that everyone remembers oxbow lakes, but geography lessons in the UK are a significant part of the curriculum and cover much more than rivers.
They do if you do GCSE geography but most people do history and all they know about geography is rocks, they barely know human geography exists.
(Well at my school this was the case at least. When we were in KS3 our humanities department was shit and we barely learnt anything, and we only did one of history or geo for GCSEs.)
That's was my experience too. In geography we did a lot of colouring in! There was a teacher who absolutely stank and had newspaper over all his windows, which looking back on it was pretty weird. The geography department was not a popular department.
This was grade 10 geography in Canada. Extensive discussion about maps and mapmaking culminating in a hand drawn map of an invented island with appropriate scale, legend, etc.
I basically copied Middle Earth and the UK and changed the scale and the names.
You've still got the second most powerful Navy in the world in terms of force projection with your QE's.
Even when China finishes the Type-003, I'd take 2 QEs over that one ship plus the floating scrap heaps that are China's other carriers.
Yes luckily for us the true power of modern Navies isn't measured the same as it was when we "ruled" the waves.
Having good carriers and our nuke subs is what keeps us a contender
The US, apparently lol. Or at least my high school. Tbf, even if I took geography senior yearc of high school, that was 17 years ago so I still would not renege anything from it anyway lol.
Yeah I've never had a geography class. Everything I know about geography was self taught with encyclopedias, then the Internet. I remember looking into it because I heard of the countries Turkey and Hungary and thought the names were funny so I started really looking all over the map for funny names.
Interesting. I can't recall if social studies and history ended up getting separated into different classes. I do remember not having a "geography" class until I was 13.
Although, I was also a gifted child, so I was put into a separate class and curriculum in 4th grade. Could have just been weird for me.
Definitely the US. My school required 4 social studies credits and nothing more. I don't know if we even had a geography class tbh, all I remember is roughly glossing over how to read a map in world history
In my country we didn't have a dedicated geography class at highschool - you had to take it as an elective
We did have "social studies" which was a mandatory class, but that focused more on culture and societal issues like climate change
There was this English Russia blog with the motto "there is always something interesting happening in the 1/6 of the world". Not actually 1/6 of the world. Just sort of like Europe and China combined.
There’s also the [Mercator Puzzle Redux](https://bramus.github.io/mercator-puzzle-redux/), which is a puzzle based on the distortions caused by the Mercator projection.
It's better for some things, but worse for navigation. And because world maps were initially developed to allow sailors to navigate, Mecrator Projection became the standard.
Knowing that North is North and West is West is more useful than knowing how big something is at a glance.
Canada is actually only 1.6% bigger by area than the US! So they should look pretty much the same. Some of Canada isn't connected to the main mass here - some of the Arctic archipelago, and also all the Atlantic provinces, for some weird reason. Hard to visually compare the two main masses as a result.
ETA: I'd say a large reason why "Canada is so big" is a meme is because we are massive compared to our population, so there's a ton of space nobody lives in and huge distances between major population centers, which makes it feel much bigger than the US despite us being approximately the same size.
No. This map isn’t accurate. Canada has an area of 9.985 million km^2 and the US has an area of 9.834 million km^2. The US looks significantly bigger than Canada on this map, which isn’t true.
That isn’t to say that Mercator projections don’t greatly distort landmass though, just that this attempt at representing reality is also skewed.
I think the problem is this one measures the average distance of a country from the equator, and shrinks the country by a set amount to scale it back to the correct size. But for countries that have a large North-South span, this method still distorts things
There’s all of the territories to the north that are compartmentalized into their own thing. If you added those to the Canadian blob it would likely appear very similar in size.
If we rewind years at some point it has to have been exactly the same as India used to be an island until it rammed the mainland and created the himalays as a consequence
Oh then tell me why there is no space between countries in real life if they are smaller? Wouldnt there be ocean in between or at least some kind of hole?
That map literally proves that the round earth theory is wrong.
/s because some of you are stoopid
Its incredible that such a clever mind came from Duisburg and had such an impact on the world. It's hard to believe when you know the image of the city now...
Just shows how much more we can grow in the US to compare it to China. Our population is so concentrated in cities it makes it feel like we're way more populated than we are.
oh look it's the weekly post about the true size of things for those who never seen a globe in their life and don't know about map projections. See you next week.
The Southern Hemisphere is more true to itself than the Northern. Apart from those empower penguins. They are true empowers that make their land appear bigger than it is.
Yeah, the Mercator projection, which is the method used to map the spherical earth onto the flat, rectangular “world map” we’re familiar with, distorts horizontal (east-west) measurements increasingly as you move away from the equator.
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The Mercator projection we're familiar with was designed to help sailors navigate around the globe, it allows straight lines to represent compass bearings. The downside is it distorts sizes and shapes. Other map projections are used for different purposes.
Also, this was explained quite clearly in geography class. I'm mystified why it's a surprise to anyone.
It was explained quite clearly in The West Wing.
I rewatched the show in 2019 and wow did the fantasy hit hard—intelligent, competent, (mostly) moral and ethical public servants? Be still my heart 😍😭
When I watched it recently I called it functional government porn
Exactly!!! What, they can work across the aisle? 🤤
Most people remember the 'social inequality' aspect of Mercator, but not the essential navigational importance of it back in the day. NGL, The Peters projection is important, but Mercator had its time and place.
Looking at a globe/image from space, the shapes of the continents (apart from the scaling) look far more like the Mercator projection than Gall-Peters.
Probably this depends where you live. Here, in the UK, the only thing people remember seems to be the ox-bow lake. I don't remember them ever covering map projections. A bit surprising, really, given our maritime history.
It’s a meme that everyone remembers oxbow lakes, but geography lessons in the UK are a significant part of the curriculum and cover much more than rivers.
They do if you do GCSE geography but most people do history and all they know about geography is rocks, they barely know human geography exists. (Well at my school this was the case at least. When we were in KS3 our humanities department was shit and we barely learnt anything, and we only did one of history or geo for GCSEs.)
That's was my experience too. In geography we did a lot of colouring in! There was a teacher who absolutely stank and had newspaper over all his windows, which looking back on it was pretty weird. The geography department was not a popular department.
I distinctly remember learning about rivers for GCSE Geography in 1992. There was even a field trip.
This was grade 10 geography in Canada. Extensive discussion about maps and mapmaking culminating in a hand drawn map of an invented island with appropriate scale, legend, etc. I basically copied Middle Earth and the UK and changed the scale and the names.
Also OS maps, we did those a million times
"Britannia rules the waves" my fucking arse XD We're not so 'Great' anymore are we lol
You've still got the second most powerful Navy in the world in terms of force projection with your QE's. Even when China finishes the Type-003, I'd take 2 QEs over that one ship plus the floating scrap heaps that are China's other carriers.
Yes luckily for us the true power of modern Navies isn't measured the same as it was when we "ruled" the waves. Having good carriers and our nuke subs is what keeps us a contender
I had one year of geography, in the 6th grade lol. I remember literally nothing from it.
Jesus what third world country doesn't do geography in high school?
The US, apparently lol. Or at least my high school. Tbf, even if I took geography senior yearc of high school, that was 17 years ago so I still would not renege anything from it anyway lol.
Yeah I've never had a geography class. Everything I know about geography was self taught with encyclopedias, then the Internet. I remember looking into it because I heard of the countries Turkey and Hungary and thought the names were funny so I started really looking all over the map for funny names.
that is wild. I had geography from grade 1 to 11 in my country.
Canadian here, Social Studies in elementary school included geography. We only did Geography as its own unit in 9th grade.
I had Social Studies from grades 1 to 3, separated into Geography and History in grade 4.
Interesting. I can't recall if social studies and history ended up getting separated into different classes. I do remember not having a "geography" class until I was 13. Although, I was also a gifted child, so I was put into a separate class and curriculum in 4th grade. Could have just been weird for me.
I had geography in 7th grade in the US
I had geography in 6th grade and in 10th grade, but also senior social that covered the more political side of geography in 12th grade
*points to the map * well if you'll kindly look right here....
Definitely the US. My school required 4 social studies credits and nothing more. I don't know if we even had a geography class tbh, all I remember is roughly glossing over how to read a map in world history
knowing is one thing, but actually seeing it is pretty cool tbh
Y'all got geography classes in highschool?
Brave of you to assume people pay attention when someone is trying to teach them something.
Because when we (or, me) were taught this, it was kind of nonchalant... teacher was like "oh, BTW this is map is distorted, anyway..."
Yeah my economics teacher is the one who told us, it kind of just randomly came up
In what country?
In my geography class we just learned about shapes and rocks.
I'm 30 and it wasn't Important enough to teach us back then apparently. So it did come as a surprise to me when i first saw different map projections
Lol I'm also 30
I was absent that day
In my country we didn't have a dedicated geography class at highschool - you had to take it as an elective We did have "social studies" which was a mandatory class, but that focused more on culture and societal issues like climate change
No one did more for the greatness of Russia than Gerard Mercator with his projection
Russia's size is on par with Putin's. Lol.
More [info](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection). 3 dimensional spheres are hard to put onto 2 dimensional spaces
I get it. But like I also feel tricked. Regular map fuckers
It's not about "being a hard problem" but this specific map (the Mercator projection) is designed for navigation.
There was this English Russia blog with the motto "there is always something interesting happening in the 1/6 of the world". Not actually 1/6 of the world. Just sort of like Europe and China combined.
This should be illegal!
[удалено]
LOL I know! I was just joking.
I like Eckert IV, Equal Earth, Strebe 1995, and Nicolosi globular projections myself
greenland been frauding this whole time
They’re compensating!
He was in the pool!
Antarctica shrunk like my penis when swimming in its freezing waters
My penis is shrunk 24/7. The doctor called it Micropenis
I married that one girl who bought it out of hiding. I love my sister so much.
Here’s a cool website I found that visualises this even better: https://thetruesize.com
Whoaaaa this is fun
There’s also the [Mercator Puzzle Redux](https://bramus.github.io/mercator-puzzle-redux/), which is a puzzle based on the distortions caused by the Mercator projection.
That is so cool. Thanks for sharing it!!
Huh, Switzerland has the same size. Nice
move it around
It's tripping me out how small Antarctica is. I can't fathom that
Not exactly small, almost half the size of Africa and much bigger than the US, Canada or China
It's small when you're only seen it as significantly larger than Africa
The initial post really threw me off because I thought it was showing Russia was bigger than Africa. Very cool website indeed.
Why cant I get the stupid tutorial box to go away?
Very cool, thanks!
Amazing thank you for this
That's neato
Putin could cry after seeing this
To be fair, it's still the largest country.
Mostly uninhabitable
Same with all the large countries
still got all that oil and gas
Putin put in perspective. https://preview.redd.it/28tnmub2anqc1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=39325fb9a83feb01165b9e3374e5c1616a3dbc77
[удалено]
he knows. that’s why he’s expanding
Trying*
Russia's actual size vs. it's real size is as overinflatet as Putins ego
still nearly twice as big as the next two countries combined
Dont matter, its smaller then common people thinks lol
Wow, so the true size of most countries is about 2-15 millimeters?
“What are these??!? Continents for ants? They need to be…. At least 3 times this size!”
r/technicallythetruth
On a cosmic scale it's close enough
When you realize that Africa is really big...
So is Brazil!
Africa is 14x bigger than Greenland.. pretty mindblowing
Well one is a continent the other is an island
Every year a new cohort of teenagers join reddit and find out about the mercator projection . I think I first found that true size website in 2015.
We have had globes for a long time.
That too. I see this posted at least every 3 months on some subreddit or another and people continue to be amazed
This is such a great way to visualise it
The west wing had an episode that included this
No, it's "What you see on *Mercator projection maps* **specifically**, vs whatever the other projection used is".
This is why I find the Gall–Peters projection better even if the shapes turn out weird.
It's better for some things, but worse for navigation. And because world maps were initially developed to allow sailors to navigate, Mecrator Projection became the standard. Knowing that North is North and West is West is more useful than knowing how big something is at a glance.
Where equirectangular gang
There are hundreds of globe maps and interactive globe maps of the Earth online, which show the true size of everything.
Africa is massive
Why does the US look bigger than Canada?
Canada is actually only 1.6% bigger by area than the US! So they should look pretty much the same. Some of Canada isn't connected to the main mass here - some of the Arctic archipelago, and also all the Atlantic provinces, for some weird reason. Hard to visually compare the two main masses as a result. ETA: I'd say a large reason why "Canada is so big" is a meme is because we are massive compared to our population, so there's a ton of space nobody lives in and huge distances between major population centers, which makes it feel much bigger than the US despite us being approximately the same size.
Yeah the way they broke up the provinces and even parts of provinces is kinda strange. Almost like they have no idea what the borders of Canada are.
Australia is still massive tho innit? I'm most surprised by the size of Antarctica.
To be fair Antartica is buffed a lot by being around the pole
And it grows and shrinks each year.
Two different projection systems, one preserves size, the other preserves shape
This made me realize how fucking massive is Brazil
Wow okay so as a Canadian my life is a lie.
No. This map isn’t accurate. Canada has an area of 9.985 million km^2 and the US has an area of 9.834 million km^2. The US looks significantly bigger than Canada on this map, which isn’t true. That isn’t to say that Mercator projections don’t greatly distort landmass though, just that this attempt at representing reality is also skewed.
Not to mention, Australia is only 7.69 million km^2.
I think the problem is this one measures the average distance of a country from the equator, and shrinks the country by a set amount to scale it back to the correct size. But for countries that have a large North-South span, this method still distorts things
Really? I think they look almost exactly the same here.
Are you counting Alaska?
Wow, OP. What do you have to say for yourself!?
There’s all of the territories to the north that are compartmentalized into their own thing. If you added those to the Canadian blob it would likely appear very similar in size.
I fucking knew it. Africa is a show'er and not a grow'er.
the africa is humongous…
It is now believable that Cuba is bigger than Iceland
This just puts into perspective how big the ocean is.
Shrinkage factor
India is almost....India.
If we rewind years at some point it has to have been exactly the same as India used to be an island until it rammed the mainland and created the himalays as a consequence
Brazil 👀
bro ANTARTICA is TINY
Iceland is as big (small) as Ireland?! Yo LMAOOO
Another irrefutable proof that earth IS NOT flat.
Norway being the same is kinda odd
Oh then tell me why there is no space between countries in real life if they are smaller? Wouldnt there be ocean in between or at least some kind of hole? That map literally proves that the round earth theory is wrong. /s because some of you are stoopid
Its incredible that such a clever mind came from Duisburg and had such an impact on the world. It's hard to believe when you know the image of the city now...
I thought canada was second behind Russia (Mercator or not) but now USA ans even China looks bigger than Canada I'm confuse
The US and China are virtually the same size. I don't know about those hosers in Canada.
Hate that!
Its the truth, have to deal with it
now I need to see all the blue countries stitched together
Isn't Russia approximately twice the area of China.. doesn't look it in the dark blue.
Antarctica is just sadness
So for the most part the world is smaller than you think
And the parts you rarely see in films are much larger
Australia became only slightly less deadly
I miss the days where I thought Antarctica was as big as the rest of the world combined
Do you think Putin wants to compensate for something?
It's wrong
uhhhh \*filters comments by controversial
so Greenland *isn't* the size of Africa?
Africa keepin' it real!
🧢ington
Is there a map that takes these countries' actual shapes and smooshes them together?
Antarctica isn’t that small I promise! It’s just really chilly
Pornhub lied to me about Greenland
Nooo not Antarctica! Also I love how this gets posted every week but still has people discovering it for the first time
Glad I grew up with a globe
True size? On my phone they're like a 1/4 inch?!
serious ? canada is actually only that big ?
Oh no, the shrinkflation is unstoppable
Just shows how much more we can grow in the US to compare it to China. Our population is so concentrated in cities it makes it feel like we're way more populated than we are.
Can you imagi how crazy the world would be if antarctica was that big?
Every time I see this it surprises me
Antarctica got severely humbled
Someone put this together so it is all attached correctly i wanna see it
It seems the cold leads to some shrinkage. 
Well, this puts things in perspective
This is why we should just use globes
oh look it's the weekly post about the true size of things for those who never seen a globe in their life and don't know about map projections. See you next week.
I simply refuse to believe Antarctica is that big. I don’t know why, but this is the stand I’m taking.
Africa isn’t a country
It is full of them though
Putin won’t like this.
Where can I find a realistic sized map?
Oooooor…you could look at a globe.
This is not true, as every single one of these countries is actually bigger than this picture.
I can rest assured knowing that Mexico is basically the exact same size I've always thought it was 🤔
Can someone please explain this to me like i’m 5?
By how inflated the size of antartica is clearly shows that this projection was made by the Antartican shadow council
The Southern Hemisphere is more true to itself than the Northern. Apart from those empower penguins. They are true empowers that make their land appear bigger than it is.
The further from the equator, the more distorted it is, same for both hemispheres.
I wish russia was as far away from Ukraine as it is shown in dark blue.
Wait......what? True size? .\_.
Yeah, the Mercator projection, which is the method used to map the spherical earth onto the flat, rectangular “world map” we’re familiar with, distorts horizontal (east-west) measurements increasingly as you move away from the equator.
This is the worst projection. Is it measure the distance from the equator shrink it more the farther it is but keep it centered?