Most of us take the world map for granted – but have you ever wondered about the different ways a map can be drawn? Recently I have seen a few posters of the Peters World Map around so I looked into where it came from and why it looks a bit different to the other one. Here is the Peters projection:
In comparison to the Mercator projection of 1569 that most of us are used to seeing (below), the Peters projection of 1967 (above) actually represents areas of equal mass as equal size on the map. Where the Mercator projection shows Greenland as larger than Africa, the Peters shows that the continent of Africa is in reality 14 times larger. This is because the Mercator inflates the sizes of regions as they get further from the equator, resulting in the technologically undeveloped areas around the equator appearing smaller. While the Mercator is more useful for navigation, the Peters is more area accurate.
Makes you wonder which other scales are out of proportion hey?
By Ross Hill - June 23rd, 2009 at 5:58pm with 1,150 views
