On the Mercator projection, one of many world’s hottest maps, Greenland and Africa look like about the identical dimension. However on the Equal Earth projection displaying continents of their true proportions, 14 Greenlands would simply match contained in the African continent.
Criticism that the Mercator projection doesn’t precisely mirror Africa’s actual dimension isn’t new.
Nonetheless, a current marketing campaign by African advocacy teams is gaining momentum on-line because it urges organizations and faculties to undertake the Equal Earth projection, which they are saying extra precisely shows the scale of the continent of greater than 1.4 billion folks.
The African Union, the continent’s diplomatic group with 55 member nations, endorsed the marketing campaign final week in what advocates name a serious milestone.
Here’s what to know concerning the effort to point out Africa’s actual dimension to the world.
Africa seems too small on most fashionable maps
Teams marketing campaign to interchange the worldwide map
Two African advocacy teams, Africa No Filter and Communicate Up Africa, launched a marketing campaign in April to push faculties, adopted by worldwide organizations and media shops, to make use of the Equal Earth projection, which it says extra precisely displays the true dimension of Africa.
“Correcting the map isn’t solely an African difficulty. It’s a matter of reality and accuracy that considerations your complete world. When complete generations, in Africa and elsewhere, study from a distorted map, they develop a biased view of Africa’s function on this planet,” stated Fara Ndiaye, co-founder and deputy government director of Communicate Up Africa.
For non-Africans, a shrunken illustration of Africa minimizes its demographic, financial and strategic significance, Ndiaye added.
The African Union endorsed the marketing campaign on Aug. 14, the most important physique to signal on to the marketing campaign up to now, marking a big milestone for the Change The Map marketing campaign.
Geographers say the Mercator projection is outdated
Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse College professor of geography, stated the Mercator projection is out of date and geographers have lengthy suggested folks to not use it as a world map.
“It was a helpful navigation software within the sixteenth century, as a result of it has straight traces, giving navigators a line of fixed path to sail alongside,” Monmonier stated. “However exterior of that very slim navigation software, there isn’t a level in utilizing it.”
Whereas maps following the curvature of the earth, just like the Equal Earth projection, supply a extra correct scale of continents true sizes, he nonetheless warned that bar graphs stay one of the best ways to check the sizes of various continents.
“Once you put irregularly formed areas on a flat paper, individuals are going to have a tough time precisely evaluating the scale of landmasses,” Monmonier stated.
