For over 500 years, a particular world map has been used for ages to teach us about plant Earth but, it turns out, the world map that we have been using all this while, is apparently wrong.
Wondering, how that’s possible? Well, the faded world map that was/is printed in our textbooks is known as the Mercator map. In 1569, this map was created by Gerardus Mercator, who literally built a whole world along the colonial lines.
Now, many may not know this but, the Mercator map had a lot of inconsistencies. For starters, Europe seems larger than North America, but in reality the reverse is true. The equator is not in place.
Also, South America should be twice the size of Europe and Greenland should be 14 times smaller than Africa and three times smaller than Australia. Even Alaska appears thrice as large as Mexico, which should actually be the opposite.
The map also suggests that Scandinavian countries are larger than India, but in reality India is actually thrice the size of all Scandinavian countries put together. Even Russia isn’t as large as shown on the map in reality, in fact Africa is larger than Russia.
However, thankfully over the years, there was another map that was created without topographical bias, that actually tries to tell the truth. Say hi, to the Gall-Peters projection.
This map, commonly known as the Peters projection was published in 1974 by Dr. Arno Peters. It’s an “equal-area” map, that was borrowed from the works of a 19th century Scotsman named James Gall.
This map is known for accurately scaling land according to surface area, creating a far more accurate perception of what the world really looks like.