I feel very lucky to have grown up with a huge (~ 75 cm diameter) globe as a centerpiece in the living room; I never ended up with Mercator-derived misconceptions in the first place.
I really enjoy this! I wish it would also support cities, it would help me get a better sense of the size of a city to compare it to one I'm familiar with already. But I guess city limits are less well defined that country limits. Anyway, great project!
I've been using, and sharing, this site for several years. I think it's excellent. The two things I'd like to see are the provinces, at least in larger countries, and large bodies of water. I'd like to be able to drag Ontario, Lake Superior, the Caspian Sea, New South Wales, and so on, around the way you can with countries and US states.
It's interesting to me how the large countries are roughly similarly sized. Canada, Australia, US, Brazil, China, Russia, India are all within a factor of 2, and it shows when you drag it across eachother. India and Russia as outliers slightly.
What a nice well made tool. I was shocked how massive Algeria is! Maybe larger than half of Europe. And Tunisia which is a tiny country in my head, seems to be not tiny at all.
Pretty neat.
One tip it took me a while to realize is that after you tap on a country, the compass rose (now the same color as the country) can be used to rotate it.
But why do countries rotate to the left as you drag them north and rotate to the right as you drag them south?
I think part of that is an illusion, since for something bowing upwards, the usualy anchor point of top left seems rotated clockwise.
But there is still a real rotation - look at wyoming or colorado for a perfect rectangle. My guess is the div element isn't quite centered - perhaps too much padding on the right edge, causing the center point to be off to the right. So when it bows you get the rotation bias
The largest surprise for me (besides the massive size of Africa and South America of course) was that Australia has roughly the same area as the entire US. Somehow I had always imagined it smaller.
Wow - in my head, Australia was somehow ~20-25% the size of US (I'm from Europe) - really surprising, and shows how misleading the projection can be in this regard.
It's useful for navigation in the open ocean without satnav or even a chronometer, which is what it was designed for in the 1500s. Not for much else.
Is the use of Mercator in schools common, globally? Based on what I've read on the internet it's common in the US, but I have no idea about other countries. In Finland I think I only ever saw Robinson or Winkel-tripel type compromise projections. Mercator was maybe used as an example of how projections distort things.
It's interesting how Russia appears to only be about twice as large as the United States or China, but on a typical map it looks at least 3-4 times larger.
If you drag something large over so it covers the south pole the shading can invert so that only the region covering the south pole is unshaded.
That's how I proved that the actual size of Australia is approximately 90% of the area of the globe. Who knew the mercator projection could be so confusing! :)
It's about half of my state in Brazil (which is one of the smallest in the country). However, I've been to Belgium many times and it feels bigger. I think the key is the population density: 388/km^2 in Belgium vs 70/km^2 here. Like, yes, it's big, but empty space is truly boring.
Nothing is "hijacked"; it just sets the hash to allow permalinks. It should probably actually load the state when pressing back (or replace the current entry instead of adding a new one). But that's just a bug and not malice, as some seem to assume.
You can see that any translation from 3D sphere to 2D plane will always create a tradeoff of geometry somewhere. E.g. Distorted shapes and lines, torn oceans, etc.
There's already several, Gall Peters being the most (in)famous. Other than accurately showing size, such maps are pretty useless. Mercator is actually useful for navigation because it maintains angles, all "size accurate" projections have to sacrifice that.
I feel very lucky to have grown up with a huge (~ 75 cm diameter) globe as a centerpiece in the living room; I never ended up with Mercator-derived misconceptions in the first place.
I really enjoy this! I wish it would also support cities, it would help me get a better sense of the size of a city to compare it to one I'm familiar with already. But I guess city limits are less well defined that country limits. Anyway, great project!
Use this site for that https://acme.com/same_scale/. It lets you compare any two map views at the same scale.
+1 for cities
I've been using, and sharing, this site for several years. I think it's excellent. The two things I'd like to see are the provinces, at least in larger countries, and large bodies of water. I'd like to be able to drag Ontario, Lake Superior, the Caspian Sea, New South Wales, and so on, around the way you can with countries and US states.
It's interesting to me how the large countries are roughly similarly sized. Canada, Australia, US, Brazil, China, Russia, India are all within a factor of 2, and it shows when you drag it across eachother. India and Russia as outliers slightly.
Russia is literally 5 times bigger than India
What a nice well made tool. I was shocked how massive Algeria is! Maybe larger than half of Europe. And Tunisia which is a tiny country in my head, seems to be not tiny at all.
Algeria is about 23.4% the size of Europe.
Pretty neat. One tip it took me a while to realize is that after you tap on a country, the compass rose (now the same color as the country) can be used to rotate it.
But why do countries rotate to the left as you drag them north and rotate to the right as you drag them south?
It's a widely observed phenomenon that as a country start to go south it moves to the right.
This explains much of the current global political situation.
I think part of that is an illusion, since for something bowing upwards, the usualy anchor point of top left seems rotated clockwise.
But there is still a real rotation - look at wyoming or colorado for a perfect rectangle. My guess is the div element isn't quite centered - perhaps too much padding on the right edge, causing the center point to be off to the right. So when it bows you get the rotation bias
Mercator projection striking again.
The largest surprise for me (besides the massive size of Africa and South America of course) was that Australia has roughly the same area as the entire US. Somehow I had always imagined it smaller.
Wow - in my head, Australia was somehow ~20-25% the size of US (I'm from Europe) - really surprising, and shows how misleading the projection can be in this regard.
I wish schools would stop using it so much. Mercator is useful, yes. But having good size comparisons is much more important for most everyday tasks.
I wonder if Mercator maps that aren't aligned with the equator would already do the trick. (pinging Randall Munroe)
It's useful for navigation in the open ocean without satnav or even a chronometer, which is what it was designed for in the 1500s. Not for much else.
Is the use of Mercator in schools common, globally? Based on what I've read on the internet it's common in the US, but I have no idea about other countries. In Finland I think I only ever saw Robinson or Winkel-tripel type compromise projections. Mercator was maybe used as an example of how projections distort things.
Huh. Swede here. Went to school in the 80:ies and 90:ies. Only ever saw Mercator. Perhaps things have changed since.
A flat map on a wall does not take any three-dimensional space. You can't say the same for a globe, though!
Brazil is the largest surprise for me. It's an absolute massive country.
It's interesting how Russia appears to only be about twice as large as the United States or China, but on a typical map it looks at least 3-4 times larger.
So much tech that can be accomplished by just using Waterman butterfly, Peters, Dymaxion or any of a host of other projections.
If you drag something large over so it covers the south pole the shading can invert so that only the region covering the south pole is unshaded.
That's how I proved that the actual size of Australia is approximately 90% of the area of the globe. Who knew the mercator projection could be so confusing! :)
Every time I end up on this website I'm reminded how small my country, Belgium, truly is.
It's about half of my state in Brazil (which is one of the smallest in the country). However, I've been to Belgium many times and it feels bigger. I think the key is the population density: 388/km^2 in Belgium vs 70/km^2 here. Like, yes, it's big, but empty space is truly boring.
Gall Peters Projection scene (From "The West Wing" S2E16) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY
I wish Europe (EU) could be selected as a common entity. The continents as well.
Would increase the data maintenance requirements from ~0 to >0 since the EU grows and shrinks every so often
I wish people learnt that (a) European Union is not Europe, and (b) Europe is a continent.
omg brazil is huge
slightly off topic but it should be a crime for a website hijacking the back button
It should be a crime for web browser letting the back button be hijacked in the first place!
It shuld be a crime for web browsers to download and execute code as a matter of loading a page.
Nothing is "hijacked"; it just sets the hash to allow permalinks. It should probably actually load the state when pressing back (or replace the current entry instead of adding a new one). But that's just a bug and not malice, as some seem to assume.
We need a new world map that accurately portrays countries by size. The downstream effects would go crazy.
>a new world map that accurately portrays countries by size.
Search for "equal-area" in the list of map projections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections
You can see that any translation from 3D sphere to 2D plane will always create a tradeoff of geometry somewhere. E.g. Distorted shapes and lines, torn oceans, etc.
There's already several, Gall Peters being the most (in)famous. Other than accurately showing size, such maps are pretty useless. Mercator is actually useful for navigation because it maintains angles, all "size accurate" projections have to sacrifice that.
> The downstream effects would go crazy.
I used to say "No human being who has ever lived has made a consequential decision because 'Greenland big brah' and people just need to get over it."
But given the current administration, I...
You think that doesn't exist? You think the cartographers and mathematicians in Mercater's age were just sitting on their hands?
Like a globe?
Like a globe, but flat, and make sure angles stay accurate so you can still use a compass effectively.
Brazil is huge.
No wonder china is investing so heavily into Africa, including having Chinese settle there.
Very nice
Oh my - history spam. I had to long-press the back button to find this HN page again.