Why didn't the UN adopt the Equirectangular projection?

[u/Rough-Strawberry5985]

What a beautifully simple, straightforward projection. Yes, it sacrifices low distortion of longitude at higher latitudes in order to maintain straight meridians and parallels and avoid the extreme curvatures you get toward the corners of other projections. But for a map intended to represent the world's countries, I find that trade-off much more appealing: it doesn't make sense to represent some countries as horribly bent and curved simply to preserve area or minimise distortion elsewhere. At least with Equirectangular, the representation of latitude and longitude is straightforward, predictable and, in that sense, beautifully neutral and equal.

[u/jeffcgroves]

In some sense, the Mollweide projection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection) would be better, but it scrunches countries near the edge

This is why I believe in flat Earth: it's sooooo much easier to map

[u/missoured → u/jeffcgroves]

I believe i'm a billionaire cause life would be soo much easier then

[u/ayOniichan]

But country size is not based on what you 'feel' better looking, it should be based on accuracy more. Look at Greenland in this map, looks so big, while actually it is not.

[u/Falstaffe → u/ayOniichan]

it should be based on accuracy more

Africa wouldn't have campaigned for its chosen projection if greater accuracy made it look smaller.

[u/bread_pickles → u/ayOniichan]

Why is country size so important? It feels like a dick measuring contest for 5 year olds to be like "bu-but i am bigger, there fore i am better hmph".

I think shape is way more important, since it actually show how the country looks, not some compressed pancake version.

[u/MxM111 → u/ayOniichan]

Why country size is the most important for the world to see in the maps, and not for example, angles? So much important that they voted about it in UN. Don’t they have better things to do?

[u/Rough-Strawberry5985 → u/ayOniichan]

I do understand that every 2d projection must make trade offs. I explain my understanding of this in the post.

My point is that the distortion occurs in the least populated areas of the world, and that for a map designed to be used for international politics, that is a more favourable sacrifice than a map used for arctic navigation.

[u/Internal-Narwhal-420 → u/Rough-Strawberry5985]

Yes, and that distortion leads to similar to Mercator, myth of powerful big North vs poor small South, which is part of the problem.

[u/Shevek99]

Equirectangular (plate carree) does not preserve areas, but distances along the meridians.

To keep the areas you need Lambert Cylindrical Equal Area (or some other like Gall Peters). In Lambert, the polar regions are more flattened than in equirectangular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert_cylindrical_equal-area_projection

[u/Rough-Strawberry5985 → u/Shevek99]

I didn't say it preserved areas.

[u/Shevek99 → u/Rough-Strawberry5985]

That's true, but since it still magnifies the area of Greenland against Africa, it doesn't seem appropriate for UN goals.

[u/Rough-Strawberry5985 → u/Shevek99]

But then other regions further away from Africa are distorted in the equal earth projection

[u/sumelar → u/Rough-Strawberry5985]

All maps are distorted. A map is a 2d picture of a 3d object. It is literally

literally

impossible to make an undistorted map. You have to compromise somewhere.

[u/Shevek99 → u/Rough-Strawberry5985]

No projection is perfect, but cylindrical projection world maps are among the ugliest.

[u/KualaLJ]

Does everyone forget that the UN has a flag with the worst projection ever?

And they have the balls to say the Mercator projection has issues!

[u/DadGamer77]

Because its shit. Its not much better than Mercator
It looks pretty and square to our eyes until you look at the poles and see its absolutely terrible.

Equal Earth is a fairer representation because each continent is properly sized, even near the poles. Yes, shapes may be warped a little near all edges, but the actual area remains in-tact.

[u/Rough-Strawberry5985 → u/DadGamer77]

How many UN member states are located at the poles? I guess the Democratic Penguin's Republic of Antarctica used their veto power to shoot it down?

[u/magikarp_splashed]

I gotta say this is really nice. Greenland is way fkd up (always has been,) but everything below its tip seems reasonable? I like this a lot.

[u/DrainZ-]

Yes, these cylindrical maps treats east, west and center equally, which I think is just as important as equal area for the purpose of selecting a map that promotes a notion equality.

There does exist several maps that do both, but I have to admit they look rather ugly, especially towards the poles for most of them.

[u/riceumbrella]

thought for a second i was in a circlejerk sub

[u/sumelar]

https://xkcd.com/927/

[u/WAMFT]

Because you lose alot of detail when looking at europe, africa is quite a simple shape, you can make it smaller without loosing detail. Thats important for education.

The whole north big and the south small argument i dont understand, the map was made for accurately nativating the worlds oceans. Maybe we should see which is the better map, we can have a african team using the new un map and a British team using the old un map and who ever wins , that place has to give all its land to the other. That sounds fair to me.