It is well known that maps' primary function is to define the dimensions and features of countries and regions and to represent a simplified form of the world. But what will shock you is the fact that the world map that accompanied us in geography books from childhood until today, is completely wrong in dimensions and measures!
Of course, projecting an entire world onto a flat sheet of paper is an outlet for many-dimensional errors or curvatures. Geographers found it very difficult to represent the world on maps until the Mercator projection, invented by Gerardus Mercator in 1569 AD, appeared and is still the most widely used.
1-what is the most common Mercato in the world?
Imagine a glass globe on which the continents are drawn. If you roll this ball into a cylinder around the equator and shine a light inside, the land will appear on the paper as a shadow. This is exactly a Mercator projection.
In this imaginary map, the north is pointing up, and the coastline is the correct projection, which makes it useful for dividing dimensions.
But since the cylinder is open from the top and bottom, the poles cannot be displayed. Also, the distances between north and south are increasing increasingly the further away from the equator.
2-what do countries and continents look like on the world map?
On the Mercator map, Alaska looks like Brazil is big, but it's actually one-fifth the size of Brazil. Greenland also appears to be about 14 times larger than necessary.
Another misplaced continent is Africa. North Americans tend to think that Africa is entirely in the Southern Hemisphere, similar to South America.
But in fact, about two-thirds of Africa lies north of the equator! It extends north to the same latitude as Norfolk, Virginia.
3-the Actual size of the continents on the world map
In addition, Europe is often placed farther south on maps than it actually is, appearing directly across the Atlantic Ocean from the contiguous US states.
Due to the prevalence of Mercator's projection in cartography, an erroneous world map has become so popular that it is owned by the geniuses of geography.
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