this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 53 minutes ago

I, for one, support the Republic of Great Ireland and Northern Britain

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

I think that these should not be straight lines regarding that the Earth is a sphere. Especially between Moscow and Helsinki.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

For those who don’t know already, this is called a Voronoi diagram.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I think I'm too stupid to understand this. How are they straight lines and not at a diameter / in a circle from any given point? It seems... wrong.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 minute ago

Oh! It totally does. I guess I've just never had to apply distances in such a way that they'd butt up against one another to become what looks like basic geometry.

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 46 minutes ago* (last edited 21 minutes ago)

I assume part of the confusuion is that the earth is not flat. If one would create a Voronoi diagram on the surface of a globe, the resulting borders would still be straight lines, but, when projected, it depends on the projection, whether they remain straight.

The creator started with a Mercator projected map of Europe and then calculated the distance between any point on the map and all capitals. The distance on two points on the spere, however, cannot be obtained by counting the distance in h/v pixels on the map and applying Pythagoras, as Mercator projection exaggerates horizontal, east-west, distances. So one needs to map the pixel coordinates back onto the sphere and calculate the distances there.

It's definitely a nice map though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

What does the separating line between two circles look like?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

I've tried to demonstrate it here. You end up with straight lines because it's always a middle point so it doesn't curve one way or another between the two points.

If the circles had a set radius then you'd have empty space and more circley-looking spots. But since they basically expand until there's a middle point you'll have these straight lines.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I was joking. But +1 for the effort and this looks like art, btw.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago

Oh dang didn't realize you weren't the same person. Thanks for the compliment, I had fun drawing it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

Draw it, then consider where the exact middle point would be. Now do the whole line between them. I think that's the best way to figure it out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

I somehow don't understand this fully but love it

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

On this map, you can see why Denmark's capital is Copenhagen. When Denmark controlled Scania and Schleswig-Holstein, it much more centrally located than today. The borders of Denmark in this map correspond roughly to the borders before the Treaty of Roskilde.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 minutes ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 minutes ago

Seconded, if Danes would take the hot potato out of their mouth and start speaking proper Swedish.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 hours ago

What about Edin, bruh?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 hours ago

this i an amazingly informative rendering.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

I don't know how NaytaData made it, but if I were doing it, I would do something like this:

  • start with a "blank" un-coloured map of coastline and country borders
  • put all the "capital" cities on the map
  • make a temporary grid of points over the map and find the closest city for each point
  • paint the map based on those temporary grid points

I would use a computer but the same steps would work with paper & pen.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago

I’d much rather be ruled by my closest capital.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

There's something funky going on north of valleta

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

Superb way to illustrate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

what if the uk colonised europe

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

Those borders don't even line up with longitude and latitude! What is this, amateur hour‽

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Vaduz? Did they just choose two cities for capital-less Switzerland?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

No, that is the capital of Liechtenstein

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 hours ago

Vaduz is the capital of Liechtenstein.