At first this map seemed perfectly fine to me, but the more I look the weirder it gets.
- The projection used (Mollweide?) distorts the hell out of Europe, Iceland is practically a smear.
- Thailand is gone.
- Crimea seems missing.
- Is Japan a bit shrunk?
- They must have screwed up mounting Africa because the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden are WAY too big
They also claim South Korea.
They included New Zealand.
They’re already leagues ahead of most US primary education text books
Maps with New Zealand.
And Tasmania!
It makes sense they’d centre the Gulf Of Korea though.
Fun fact: Whether North or South are “up” on a map is also completely arbitrary.
They undercut the message buy putting upside down at the top.
I had a teacher in high school who always set his globe that had the text oriented to the nearest pole to have the south pole on top. Anyone switching it would start a conversation about how there isn’t a ‘correct’ up direction.
There is only a “correct” up direction if it has words. The “correct” up would be the direction of the letters.
Or left right
Should have rotated the other way so the sun scrolls satisfyingly top-to-bottom.
Oh god why Mercator?
Mercator really starts to shine when you rotate it by 90 degrees.
This is cursed enough to be an SCP
At this point, Africa is almost represented at its actual size.
This looks like a fantasy world map wtf.
Yeah, but European borders aren’t
Sure they are, they’re fun to redraw too. I thought y’all loved doing that
It’s freaking me out!
That is common in east Asia in general, and I don’t see why not 🤷
Exactly, no one here played Street Fighter 2 on SNES?!
What do you mean america is not the center of the universe?
I’m no map understander, but I think the projection choice might have not been the best cause it seems to skew edges, while the part that it maintains has a lot of empty space (or maybe I’m just used to other maps). Though this is just a random map on a wall so 🤷
The solution is to create a new continent in the Pacific.
I’m trying but they keep cleaning up my plastic
You are used to other maps. Yours are skewed the same way, at least when referencing the versions with curved edges (Robinson), but you just see the same anglo-centric projections, being centered on the prime meridian from the northern hemisphere. The USA is a little bigger than shown on the “normal” map. Greenland is quite smaller than represented. South America/Africa/Australia are significantly undersized. And there’s no hope for understanding Antarctica in either version.
Yes, but the maps we’re more used to split in the middle of the Pacific, far from all land, more or less at Point Nemo. That minimizes the visual distortion since the land is further from the edges of the map.
Splitting through the Atlantic makes it trickier, because the ocean is significantly narrower, meaning that the land masses are all closer to the edges.
Positioning the map with North at the top is truly arbitrary, but splitting the map in the Pacific actually makes a lot of sense from a usability perspective.
Less land? Sure, but not away from all land. Less people, debatable. The Atlantic split makes it hard to notice Alaska and Russia are miles apart. It also makes it seems like hundreds of pacific islands are at the edge of the world, isolated. It presents the Americas and Asia as, literally, a world apart. No matter where you draw your centerline, the edges have greatly distorted distances. It’s not just continental mass that’s important, but aquatic distances as well.
I don’t think it’s particularly debatable that more people live in Europe and Africa and South America (the most notably distorted landmasses in the Pacific-centered map) than in Alaska, Eastern Russia, and the few Pacific isles that aren’t tucked right in next to Continental Asia and Australia. The most populous nation negatively affected by a Pacific split is probably New Zealand, and that only represents about five million people. The most populous nation negatively affected by an Atlantic split is probably Brazil, with over forty times as many people.
If you can see South America is distorted as an entire continent in the pictured map, then you should be able to realize the PM split does the same to Eastern Asia. China alone has triple the population of South America. Also going to point out the standard split is not really in the Atlantic, but through England, France, and Spain, and is so far east of the North Atlantic that about 8 African countries lie entirely west of the center.
And it has New Zealand on it!
Most maps in Asia are like this. That’s why growing up I was confused why the US was called the west and East/Southeast Asia was called the far east.
edit: Oops, didn’t realize the credit wouldn’t be obvious. It’s xkcd #503.
I guess it kinda makes sense if you draw the line right down the middle of Germany. Weird, I wonder if there’s any historical precedent for that…
Its almost as if some country thinks they are the center of the world.
Well, specifically a couple of countries on either side of the Atlantic.
It’s more like most countries. Maps like the one shown in this post that place Asia as a central focus are common in Asia.
Maybe it’s not national narcissism, rather just focusing on what’s most relevant to any one people.
I think putting the line down the Pacific makes the most sense in most cases. But the national narcissism has historically been a defining characteristic of the UK and the US
It makes as much sense as any other 2D projection of the globe.
I like this one
In this map’s defense, it really highlights the value of a northwest passage and all the canals.
Maybe a little more than this one…
thank god I needed a map with an inverse relationship with population and size on the map
Doesn’t the US sometimes use one that puts America in the center and cuts Eurasia in half? Can we agree this one is definitely stupid?
This unlocked some memories, wow.
I’ve never seen that in the US. That is extremely stupid. Typically maps in the US center around the Atlantic/Europe.
From the US: I grew up with a map like this in the dining room. It was super confusing as s a little kid.
where to cut is one of the hardest decisions. i am guilty of defaulting to cut through greenland more than any other country when making world map desktop wallpapers.
I don’t think it’s that difficult to decide. There’s a lot more room between San Jose, California and Hokkaido, Japan than between Natal, Brazil and Dakar, Senegal; cutting through the Pacific makes the most sense for most applications, I think. Sure, the Bering Strait is pretty tiny, but if you break in the Atlantic you’re going to get a lot of distortion in Greenland (hasn’t it had enough?), mainland Europe, and Brazil.
I like it, if only because it places Oceania at the center. They’re always pushed aside and it’s big sad.
At least it has New Zealand.
Don’t the rest of the countries in the region use similar maps? South Korea, Australia, Japan…? I would expect that to be the case, it seems more natural.
Yes, and Australia even has it as upside down.
They’ve not discovered Antarctica yet
There is no North Korea in North Korea. There is only Korea.
Nerd sniped me enough to look it up. Both countries use different names for “all of korea.” While the north generally refers to itself with the same term as all of korea, there are some contexts where there is a “north Korea” used.
Nerd sniped me
The fuck’s wrong with you?(I guess that wasn’t directed at me)Look at the pic, all of Korea is red.
Sorry if I didn’t explain it well. What I mean is that dprk considers itself the “true” government of the Korean peninsula, and their terminology generally reflects this. Due to the functional reality of the ongoing conflict, “South Korea” is used often. Though it’s used rarely, “North Korea” (literally north, functionally “unoccupied” or “free”) does still show up occasionally in language.
Sea of Thieves lookin’ map.
Projection aside, proportionally it’s a bit whack and Japan is a bit too far north. Taiwan also seems to be inexplicably MIA, which would be understandable if it were omitted due to size but there are several smaller islands still depicted.
Perhaps the real point of interest is that it seems to depict the North and South Koreas as united with the whole peninsula colored in red. As usual for the Juche Boys, this is probably a tacit threat rather than any indication of potential armistice or reconciliation.
They do this petty, embarrassing shit all the time on their maps. Made it look like Japan smaller while simultaneously peninsula bigger. And this is not just from north but south too lol
The oddest part for me is Greenland being split from the Americas
I mean politically speaking it’s Danish, so I suppose it makes sense to group it with Europe in some ways.
It does look a little odd though.
