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The world map is changing: The UN has backed replacing the 500-year-old Mercator projection with the accurate Equal Earth projection (europe.pub)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 1 month ago (6 children)

The Mercator projection really seems to be Africa-centric if anything

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    In what way? It inflates the size of areas as they get further away from the equator, resulting in Africa being portrayed as relatively much smaller than it is compared to Europe and North America

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Africa is by far the most accurately portrayed part of the map, and it’s right in the center.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    The center - east to west - is 0 degrees longitude, defined as the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. This does also go through West Africa

    The center - north to south - is 0 degrees latitude, defined as the equator.

    Because of this, Africa is central on the vast majority of world map projections including the Mercator and the Equal Earth.

    Accuracy is relative. The Mercator distorts areas bigger the further away they are from the equator. This exaggerates the size of the USA, Europe etc compared to Africa.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    The big advantage is that the 180th meridian ends up in a very unpopulated part of the world. It is Chukotka Oblast and more importantly Fiji. For the current 0meridian style maps, that is two edges being without much population and not cutting too many continents.

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