Unfortunately, your cutouts probably would not do the trick. Most of the maps we are used to seeing are made using the Mercator Projection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection), which flattens the globe with changing scale, making latitude spacing wider toward the poles than at the equator. Since continents in the southern hemisphere are further from the south pole than northern continents are from the north pole, northern continents/countries look relatively much larger than they actually are.
I was first confronted with this issue when we were in Liberia the first time. Some high school Liberians pointed to the size of the US vs. Africa on a map to make the case that the USA is a greater country than any African country. Essentially, the skewed map gave them a skewed perspective of their place, importance, and influence in the world.
It was an eye-opening experience for me that has forever reshaped my world. -mo
That is very interesting. I would assume that using Google Earth one could see the true sizes but then if they are on the opposite side of the globe, you couldn't compare very well without using the measure tool. I'll use the measure tool and play around sometime.
3 comments:
This is a very enlightening image. I assume it is correct. I would not have thought it. I'll do my own cutouts sometimes to check it - NOT!
Unfortunately, your cutouts probably would not do the trick. Most of the maps we are used to seeing are made using the Mercator Projection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection), which flattens the globe with changing scale, making latitude spacing wider toward the poles than at the equator. Since continents in the southern hemisphere are further from the south pole than northern continents are from the north pole, northern continents/countries look relatively much larger than they actually are.
I was first confronted with this issue when we were in Liberia the first time. Some high school Liberians pointed to the size of the US vs. Africa on a map to make the case that the USA is a greater country than any African country. Essentially, the skewed map gave them a skewed perspective of their place, importance, and influence in the world.
It was an eye-opening experience for me that has forever reshaped my world.
-mo
That is very interesting. I would assume that using Google Earth one could see the true sizes but then if they are on the opposite side of the globe, you couldn't compare very well without using the measure tool. I'll use the measure tool and play around sometime.
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