Mercator Map Colonialism

Proponents of the Peters projection map claim that their map is an accurate fair and unbiased depiction of the world when comparing theirs to the almost-defunct Mercator map which features enlarged depictions of euro-centric countries and continents. Its shape was adapted from the French mathematician and cartographer Oronce Finé who introduced it less than a decade prior.

File Imperial Federation Map Of The World Showing The Extent Of The British Empire In 1886 Jpg Wikimedia Commons

Mercators solution was to stretch out the northern and southern extremities of the globe to fill those gaps producing an elegant and usable map.

Mercator map colonialism. Public domain property via Wikimedia Commons Mercators famous 1569 world map came in a set of eighteen paper sheets. Your World Map is Hiding Something. This incredible map tool reveals just how much the Mercator map distorts the world.

Iceland is too big on the map. This is the map that we see in classrooms all over the world. Take a look at a map of the world.

Typically the cropping technique results in a map showing the equator about 60 of the way down the map diminishing the size and importance of the developing countries. When you consider that most of Africa was under European imperial rule for large parts of the 19th and 20th centuries the idea that Eurocentrism drove our adoption of the Mercator map. The Mercator is one of a class of projections known as conformal meaning that angles are projected accurately.

To be completely honest it IS a convenient map. But forget everything you know. For the last 500 years a certain kind of world map has been used to teach children about our planet.

In fact even Google Maps uses the Mercator map. Issued 1876 Edinburgh by A. Because the Mercator distorts size so much at the poles it is common to crop Antarctica off the map.

Fortunately The True Size is set up to help cartography fans see how much it distorts land mass by allowing users to move outlines of nations across the 2-D images. Expanded it reaches 202 cm x 124 cm 80 x 48 in size. Mercator map enthusiasts defend the ease of navigation of their map.

Mercators first world map 1538. Hence small shapes are accurate as well. World Map British Empire Colonialism New Zealand Australia British Raj Cape Colony British Canada Guyana Falkland Islands.

Heres the Right One. This map superimposes Portugals African colonies on a map of Europe. The map most commonly used in the world is the Mercator map.

The biggest economic powers were given the space on paper to flex their border biceps. Europes colonial powers each drew lines across a map of Africa and coloured in their territories with their imperial hue-of. The world is not as it seems humanity has been brainwashed by a Flemish mapmaker and were probably living in a colonial Matrix.

In 1569 Gerardus Mercator built a whole world drawn along colonial lines literally. Mercator map of the world with Africa and south America on. This is also the map that formulates our basic ideas of what our planet looks like.

The Mercator Map. Its called the Mercator projection. Ships were the dominant form of transportation at the time and Mercator projections have advantages over a Gall-Peters projection in that a straight line drawn on the map charts a constant coursebearing.

In reality Mexico is larger than Alaska and Africa is about 14x the size of Greenland. While a revolutionary tool for captains and. A lot of people have problems with the Mercator map of the world.

Most might recognize the old map from faded school textbooks. Great Britain was entering the height of its colonial power. Yes it is clear that the prevalence of Mercator projections is directly related to the strength of European colonial tendencies.

It is oddly addictive. If it looks like this one as most do you will see that Alaska appears larger than Mexico and that Greenland looks about the same size as Africa. Your Mental World Map Is Wrong.

While there had been colonies in parts of coastal Africa for centuries new advances in weapon technology trains and a liquid defense against malaria meant that European powers could now invade the interior. In 1884 a group of European leaders and diplomats met in Berlin to carve up Africa in service of their imperial interests. Questions like this are geographic and cartographic illiteracy.

This practice results in the Northern Hemisphere appearing much larger than it really is.

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