Friday, October 19, 2018

World Mercator projection with true country size added

 How the Mercator projection distorts the true sizes of countries on maps
map made by Neil Kaye, data scientist  
 
courtesy of Jaub Nowosad
 
..., distorsion particulary in the Northern hemisphere
However Mercator was not developed as a way of manipulating people's perceptions about the size of non-European countries.
It was 'invented' by the Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 and became the standard map projection for nautical navigation because of its ability to represent lines of constant course, known as rhumb lines. 

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