@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz No, they didn't. National Geographic was for adults, not kids, and their maps were mostly a zoom into the region they were highlighting in their stories. Adults already have their internal view of the world's map in their minds; kids are still internalising it. School text books mostly used, and still use, the Mercator, and as US textbooks did, so did most in other countries, at least until High School (years 7 and above). Hell, even the equidistant projection is thought of by some as the real world, as they saw it every day on the classroom wall and soaked it up. Yes, it's been changing, but this should formulate and accelerate that change. The only way to show true sizes is a globe, and they don't allow easy comparisons.