{"id":84542,"date":"2026-09-09T18:17:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=84542"},"modified":"2026-09-09T18:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T12:47:32","slug":"mercator-equal-earth-evolution-world-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/09-09-2026\/mercator-equal-earth-evolution-world-maps","title":{"rendered":"From Mercator to Equal Earth: The Evolution of World Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS1\/ Geography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The United Nations has adopted a resolution to shift away from the <strong>16th-century Mercator map <\/strong>of the world towards one that more accurately depicts Africa\u2019s vast size.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why Earth Cannot Be Accurately Shown on a Flat Map?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Earth is an <strong>oblate spheroid<\/strong>, rather than a perfect sphere, because of its rotation, gravitational effects and uneven distribution of land and oceans.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A map projection<strong> converts the three-dimensional curved surface of Earth<\/strong> into a <strong>two-dimensional plane<\/strong>, inevitably introducing some distortion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Every projection involves a<strong> trade-off between area, shape, distance and direction.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Therefore, no single flat map can simultaneously preserve all geographical properties accurately.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>About Mercator Projection<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Origin:<\/strong> The Mercator layout was introduced by the <strong>Flemish (present-day Belgium) <\/strong>geographer and mapmaker<strong> Gerardus Mercator<\/strong> in <strong>1569<\/strong> to help sailors navigate the world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is a <strong>conformal, cylindrical map.<\/strong> This means Mercator projected the Earth\u2019s surface as if unwrapped from a cylinder around the globe.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the 18th century, it became the standard map projection for navigation due to its <strong>property of representing rhumb lines as straight lines.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Mercator projection has a<strong> grid pattern with longitudes and latitudes at 90-degree angles.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The longitudes (vertical lines) are evenly spaced, but the distances between the latitudes (horizontal lines) increase as one moves away from the equator towards the poles.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The result is that Mercator projection inflates the size of lands the farther they are from the equator.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Therefore, landmasses such as <strong>Greenland and Antarctica appear far larger <\/strong>than they actually are relative to landmasses near the equator.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Concern with Mercator projection<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Mercator layout has been the world\u2019s most widely used projection for centuries. However, it has also long been <strong>criticised for exaggerating the size of regions towards the poles <\/strong>relative to those closer to the equator.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The most infamous example of these distortions is its <strong>depiction of the African continent,<\/strong> which appears similar to Greenland\u2014an island 14 times smaller and about the size of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"dcdcde\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #dcdcde;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"648\" height=\"435\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-77.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"not-transparent wp-image-84543\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-77.png 648w, https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-77-300x201.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 648px) 100vw, 648px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Evolution of Alternative Projections<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Gall-Peters projection:<\/strong> It preserves area but significantly distorts shapes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Robinson projection:<\/strong> A compromise projection designed to balance distortions in area and shape.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Winkel Tripel projection:<\/strong> It balances distortion in area, distance and direction and was adopted by the National Geographic Society in 1998.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Equal Earth projection:<\/strong> It preserves relative area while limiting shape distortion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-background\" style=\"background-color:#fff2cc\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p><strong>The Equal Earth map<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Equal Earth map,<strong> developed in 2018<\/strong>, is an equal area projection (there are others, too) that seeks to <strong>preserve the relative areas of landmasses.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It, too, somewhat <strong>distorts shapes and distances<\/strong>, with meridians curving gently towards the poles<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-sci-tech\/equal-earth-map-un-mercator-projection-10869009\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>IE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nContext\u2028<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\n<p>The United Nations has adopted a resolution to shift away from the 16th-century Mercator map of the world towards one that more accurately depicts Africa\u2019s vast size.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/p>\n<p>Why Earth Cannot Be Accurately Shown on a Flat Map?<\/p>\n<p><\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"\t>\n<p>Earth is an oblate spheroid, rather than a perfect sphere, because of its rotation, gravitational effects and uneven distribution of land and oceans.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\">\n<p>A map projection converts the three-dimensional curved surface of Earth into a two-dimensional plane, inevitably introducing some distortion.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<p><a href=\" https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/09-09-2026\/mercator-equal-earth-evolution-world-maps \" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84545,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84542\/revisions\/84545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}