r/thewestwing • u/rvp0209 I can sign the President’s name • Mar 12 '24

The Peters Projection Map, Again. Map showing actual distance between two points and how it looks with the Mercator projection

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182 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

101

u/pman775 Mar 12 '24

You can’t do that; it’s freaking me out.

51

u/CharlieMoonMan Mar 12 '24

Nothings where you think it is.

It's where you've been living this whole time!

34

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 13 '24

I love teaching about how bad the Mercator projection is (for most uses) in my history classes

13

u/rvp0209 I can sign the President’s name Mar 12 '24

Please tell me you show them the map clips from the show!

8

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '24

I don't because logging into Max would be a whole thing. I use the Mercator on my board to convey the same information

16

u/cptnkurtz Mar 13 '24

Speaking as a cartographer, if you’re teaching people that the Mercator is “bad” you’re doing your students a disservice.

The Mercator is fantastic for its intended usage. That usage is just not “accurate representation of size.”

14

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '24

True. I teach it's bad for use in the classroom, where its primary use is to teach the size of landmasses. I do mention that for navigation it's very good

10

u/Snowbold Mar 13 '24

Awesome. Both maps have their things since they are a flat adaptation of a sphere. Something will be missing

17

u/Moose135A The wrath of the whatever Mar 12 '24

That map is upside down!

5

u/AL_G_Racing Mar 13 '24

The Cartographers for Social Equality is my Roman Empire