Post by @cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz

2026-09-06 01:26 UTC

@PeterLG@theblower.au "kids everywhere" - like when and where are they actually exposed to maps with oversized North Americas and Europes relative to Africa? The AU and UN resolutions claim that this happens all the time but I can't even remember when I last saw a Mercator / not-about-equal-area map in an educational, let alone political context. And National Geographic began using mostly 'correct' maps in 1988: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_projection - didn't they at least use to be THE source of geographical information for Americans for decades?

Replies (2)

@mike_malaska@deepspace.social 2026-09-06 02:50

@cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz @PeterLG@theblower.au I like to compare different worlds, so I use an Equidistant Cylindrical projection. The bummer with Robinson or Molleweide is that it has to get curvy-cut somewhere (on Earth it is usually in the ocean, sorry, oceanographers!) It is easier to mentally, or formally with a simple image editor (cut/copy/paste), change the centerpoint longitude in EC, but not so with Robinson or Molleweide. (Yes, it still distorts at mid-latitudes and poles, but not as bad as Mercator.)

Open ##5324588
@PeterLG@theblower.au 2026-09-06 02:57

@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.

Open ##5324589