-One of my favorite episodes of the West Wing also happens to be an interesting topic. AlderaanDuran I know you're a West Wing fan, I'm sure you recall this episode, and flagamuffin your a fan of cartography. Any thoughts on the Gall-Peters Projection? Why isn't it used popularly? What is widely accepted as the most accurate world map?
Gall-Peters Projection via Wikipedia:
- The Gall–Peters projection was first described in 1855 by clergyman James Gall, who presented it along with two other projections at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (the BA). He gave it the name "orthographic" (no relation to the Orthographic projection) and formally published his work in 1885 in the Scottish Geographical Magazine.[4]
The name "Gall–Peters projection" seems to have been used first by Arthur H. Robinson in a pamphlet put out by the American Cartographic Association in 1986.[5] Before 1973 it had been known, when referred to at all, as the "Gall orthographic" or "Gall's orthographic." Most Peters supporters refer to it only as the "Peters projection." During the years of controversy the cartographic literature tended to mention both attributions, settling on one or the other for the purposes of the article. In recent years "Gall–Peters" seems to dominate.
- In 1967 Arno Peters, a German filmmaker and historian, devised a map projection identical to Gall's orthographic projection and presented it in 1973 as a "new invention." He promoted it as a superior alternative to the Mercator projection, which was suited to navigation but also used commonly in world maps. The Mercator projection increasingly inflates the sizes of regions according to their distance from the equator. This inflation results, for example, in a representation of Greenland that is larger than Africa, whereas in reality Africa is 14 times as large. Since much of the technologically underdeveloped world lies near the equator, these countries appear smaller on a Mercator and therefore, according to Peters, seem less significant. On Peters's projection, by contrast, areas of equal size on the globe are also equally sized on the map. By using his "new" projection, poorer, less powerful nations could be restored to their rightful proportions. This reasoning has been picked up by many educational and religious bodies, leading to adoption of the Gall–Peters projection among some socially concerned groups, including Oxfam,[6] National Council of Churches,[7] New Internationalist magazine,[8] and the Mennonite Central Committee.[9]
Peters's original description of the projection for his map contained a geometric error that, taken literally, implies standard parallels of 46°02′ N/S. However the text accompanying the description made it clear that he had intended the standard parallels to be 45° N/S, making his projection identical to Gall's orthographic.[10] In any case, the difference is negligible in a world map.
Linking xkcd has become a trite thing, which is unfortunate because most of the time Randall knocks it out of the park. This might be his best one ever. I kind've think equirectangular is neat, and since none of the projections are actually practical, why not? EDIT: and that's a good scene, of course.
I actually think that using the word "trite" has become a trite thing :) That link was absolutely hilarious, I've only seen xkcd once before I think, so it's new to me. Thanks.
Gall-Peters is an improvement over the standard Mercator in terms of equal area - because that's not what it's for. If anyone was actually suggesting the Mercator was good for it Gall-Peters might be useful. They're not, it isn't. The Waterman Butterfly makes me quite happy; you take a physical globe made up of spheres and unfold it onto a 2d surface. It's like the Goode Homolosine but less ugly. The Goode Homolosine looks like a snake drawn by a child. Actually thinking of that makes it quite charming.Some of the oldest projections are equal-area (the sinusoidal projection is also known as the "Mercator equal-area projection"), and hundreds have been described, refuting any implication that Peters's map is special in that regard. In any case, Mercator was not the pervasive projection Peters made it out to be: a wide variety of projections has always been used in world maps.[26] Peters's chosen projection suffers extreme distortion in the polar regions, as any cylindrical projection must, and its distortion along the equator is considerable. Several scholars have remarked on the irony of the projection's undistorted presentation of the mid latitudes, including Peters's native Germany, at the expense of the low latitudes, which host more of the technologically underdeveloped nations.[27][28] The claim of distance fidelity is particularly problematic: Peters's map lacks distance fidelity everywhere except along the 45th parallels north and south, and then only in the direction of those parallels. No world projection is good at preserving distances everywhere; Peters's and all other cylindric projections are especially bad in that regard because east-west distances inevitably balloon toward the poles.[25][29]
The cartographic community met Peters's 1973 press conference with amusement and mild exasperation
The Mercator and Gall-Peters projections are two projections on the extremes of the spectrum, ranging from angle-correct to surface-correct. Mercator has historically been used to navigate the seas, because if you draw a straight line on it, it's actually straight, with angles preserved. Sadly it got adopted as the 'standard' map projection, with large distortions at the poles (look at the South Pole, appearing to be larger than any continent, which obviousely isn't true). The Gall-Peters on the other hand wants to display surface area correctly, and heavily deforms topology (the borders of countries, the way they're connected), stretching them until they fit. The problem with it that I have is that the 'Peters supporters' said that the Mercator was partly responsible for colonialism, and that their map is 'much better', which is absolute nonsense. It didn't cause colonialism and no map projection is 'the best', as they're all compromises from going from a 3d to a 2d surface.
God I love the "block of cheese" episodes. Love Josh's line in this one, "Give me $200 bucks and it's done."