Why Do European Maps Shrink Africa?

Why Do European Maps Shrink Africa?

Oct. 21, 2019

"When you continue to show images of the places where people's heritage is rooted that is not accurate, that has an effect on students."

~Colin Rose, Boston Public Schools

Africa is a lot larger than you think and Europe isn't where you thought it was.

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

Why every world map you're looking at is WRONG. Africa, China and India are distorted despite access to accurate satellite data.

The current most used maps, it has been heavily criticized because it exaggerates the size of imperialist nations like Europe and North America, and shrinks South America and Africa.

Which is bigger, Greenland or China? With the traditional Mercator map (circa 1569, and still in use in many schoolrooms and boardrooms today), Greenland and China look the same size. But in reality China is almost 4 times larger! In response to such discrepancies, Dr. Arno Peters created a new world map that dramatically improves the accuracy of how we see the Earth.

The distortion is the result of the Mercator map which was created in 1596 to help sailors navigate the world. It gives the right shapes of countries but at the cost of distorting sizes in favor of the European lands to the north.

For instance, north America looks larger, or at least as big, as Africa, and Greenland also looks of comparable size. In reality, you can fit north America into Africa and still have space for India, Argentina, Tunisia and some left over. Map suggests Scandinavian countries are larger than India, whereas in reality India is three times the size.

Boston's public schools are introducing a different world map (Peter Projection Map), arguing that the old one is inaccurate.

But the Mercator still dominates and the digital revolution has further strengthened its position.

Today the Mercator projection is used as a template at Google Maps, OpenStreetMap and Bing, says Kraak.

From guiding 16th century explorers on the high seas to helping people find Pokemons on their smartphones, Mercator's work continues to influence how people see the world centuries after his death.

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What's the real size of Africa? How Western states used maps to downplay size of continent

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/18/africa/real-size-of-africa