The world can be sorted into a couple of categories – the things we question, and the things we take to be fact. Part of growing up involves starting to query some stuff – like is Santa real or did the CIA assassinate Kennedy? – while other subjects are generally left alone, because they’re trusted cornerstones of society.
Take the map of the world for example. Nearly everyone grew up with the same image hanging in his or her classroom. As a result, it’s how we’ve come to perceive our planet, and by staring at it for hours, we all know what the continents and countries look like, at least vaguely. Except that we don’t, because just like the fat guy in the red suit, it turns out the whole thing is a lie.
It’s all thanks to a European cartographer named Geert de Kremer, better known as Mercator, and his 16th century drawings. Originally made for navigating the seas, Mercator added the meridians and parallels as straight lines, crossing at right angles, to help sailors navigate around the globe. This did the trick, and made for an easier way to chart the world, but a side effect was it also distorted the true size of the countries.
This made for an easier way to chart the world, but a side effect was it also distorted the true size of the countries.
Look at Africa – because of where it sits on the equator, it’s reasonably undistorted on the Mercator map, so it’s left looking much smaller than it really is. Alternatively, countries closer to the poles, like Canada, Russia, the USA, and Europe are greatly enlarged. To put this into context, you could fit America, India and China inside the real Africa. And there’d still be plenty of room to spare.
Theories behind why this happened originally, and how the illusion has survived for so long, include everything from the innocent (European cartographers simply wanted more room to fit in details like roads, towns and cities) to the sinister (enlarged countries like Russia and America appear more powerful and intimidating).
Whatever the truth, the Mercator map is a good reminder to question everything.
