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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 (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/interestingasfuck@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 15 hours ago (1 child)

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

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  • [–] 6 points 15 hours ago (2 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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  • [–] 6 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 4 points 8 hours 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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