This is a fallacy of composition. the tradeoffs vary. The equal-area projection has zero (or close to) size distortion globally, at the expensive of shape inaccuracy as you approach the polar regions; Antarctica looks particularly wrong if you know anything about its coastline. But most people don't, and nobody really lives in Antarctica besides penguins.
It's not my favorite projection visually speaking but I can see why they would go with it since much of human history/ society/ economy etc. is a function of available land and so its kinda natural that people mentally prioritize size over shape. Shape matters a great deal too, but that's more at the local level. Nobody uses a global map for specific navigation or survey purposes outside of highly technical things like satellite navigation etc that occupy a negligible fraction of humans, and who as technicians are going to employ multiple projections rather than a single generic one.
"The United States, the only country to vote against the resolution, said it promoted an "ideological agenda" and was a distraction from the "genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations"."
I mean, flipping back and forth between Mollweide and Equal-Earth (what they went with), I see only minor differences, with distortion seemingly favouring Equal-Earth. What's the rationale for having such a strong preference, especially as either is such an improvement over the current map (which has it's principle advantage being for sailing between continents, which isn't exactly the most common use-case)?
Comments
From the article: ''United States was the only country to vote against''
Accuracy is too 'ideological' now. Sic transit gloria mundi.
No projection is accurate. All of them have tradeoffs.
This is a fallacy of composition. the tradeoffs vary. The equal-area projection has zero (or close to) size distortion globally, at the expensive of shape inaccuracy as you approach the polar regions; Antarctica looks particularly wrong if you know anything about its coastline. But most people don't, and nobody really lives in Antarctica besides penguins.
It's not my favorite projection visually speaking but I can see why they would go with it since much of human history/ society/ economy etc. is a function of available land and so its kinda natural that people mentally prioritize size over shape. Shape matters a great deal too, but that's more at the local level. Nobody uses a global map for specific navigation or survey purposes outside of highly technical things like satellite navigation etc that occupy a negligible fraction of humans, and who as technicians are going to employ multiple projections rather than a single generic one.
"The United States, the only country to vote against the resolution, said it promoted an "ideological agenda" and was a distraction from the "genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations"."
https://x.com/MtnMapper/status/2095926090074034349
Booo...they should have gone with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollweide_projection
I mean, flipping back and forth between Mollweide and Equal-Earth (what they went with), I see only minor differences, with distortion seemingly favouring Equal-Earth. What's the rationale for having such a strong preference, especially as either is such an improvement over the current map (which has it's principle advantage being for sailing between continents, which isn't exactly the most common use-case)?
Earth is round so the map should also be round.
How does an article about a new thing not show the thing?