New Zealand has also taken issue with the Mercator map, with a tourism ad back in 2018 – featuring then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – joking that “New Zealand is disappearing off the world maps” due to its position in the bottom right-hand corner.
Mate, New Zealand isn’t even real. Don’t believe everything you see when watching lord of the rings. /jk
Why is the US against, most US citizens have never even seen the world map. A map of just the US is all they need.
Great to see the United States being humiliated internationally again.
I mean it’s stupid but there’s so much more humiliation going on rn
this is the difference btw
to
What we had in school in the U.S.
The Robinson projection:
What many U.S. texts moved to after I left school.
The Winkel Triple Projection:
Apparently the Mercador map is what digital maps seem to use because the lines are 90 degrees so it makes it easier.
I’m sure that Google will quickly change their map projections from Pseudo-Mercator to Equal Earth projection as quickly as they changed the names of the bodies of water because President orange cheeto said so… right?.. Riiiight?
Web Mercator is a special kind of abomination, even down to the way the map is cropped to be exactly square. But it is probably the most suitable for navigation, as Mercator itself was designed specifically for it.
Buildings, streets and map features would be more distorted under Equal Earth projection than they already are with Web Mercator. Web Mercator also has the benefit that the cardinal directions are always straight respective to the XY grid, even though the Y direction is non linear.
There is no perfect way of flattening a 3D spheroid into a 2D map, sadly.
But at the scale of streets and building surely the type of map projections is such a mute point the earth might as well be flat.
Not actually, it depends on the projection.
The most noticeable visual distortion of a map projection at street level isn’t actually size and area, but angle. While Mercator and Web Mercator distort both size and area, angle remains the same. But projections like Equal Earth distort angle to keep area and size the same.
In practice, what this means is that with Web Mercator, you will see an intersection as 2 perpendicular lines crossing each other, leaving four 90° angles. But with Equal Earth, depending on the location, all those angles will be different, and the lines won’t be perfectly perpendicular.
(of course, Web Mercator also has this issue, because it uses a perfect sphere instead of a spheroid for the projection, but the very slight difference isn’t really noticeable, and using a spheroid is more compute-heavy)
Map navigation and satellite imagery are very specific cases where a Mercator or Mercator style projection are better suited, mainly because of the preservation of the angles. However, for any other case, Equal Earth is a very good projection, and I agree it should be used over Mercator. Especially in education.
I knew there was something amiss 😄
Well, your initial comment made you quite the hute.
It would be funny if they built their entire system on one projection.
Even Israel voted differently to the US, that’s way funnier than it should be
The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a “radical ideological project.”
“radical” lost all meaning in the US
It has. I am just hoping that once cheeto man is out of office that life in the US can progress back to something more recognizable again.
You need to flush the system of all his acolytes too.
I saw the US was against it an thought it had to be smth like this. Only americans can look at a problem like “you can’t project a 3D sphere onto a 2D plane” and think “waow this is a little too political for me” (I know I’m oversimplifying but u get the gist)
In other words, the reasons and explanations were too difficult for the American envoy to grasp.
you must be kidding
And of course, nobody is surprised.
I’m more surprised that Russia voted Yes
Russia doesn’t care because they’re big as fuck on any projection.
So is the US, but we voted no because we’re contrarian little pissbabies.
Russia’s been cozying up to Africa for a long time. And it was the AU which spearheaded this initiative.
Since Russia is actually very large, they’re probably thinking they’ll look even bigger than they already do!
Lmao the fucking irony:
The US, which voted against the resolution, slammed the text as an ideological exercise that it said undermined the UN’s credibility.
“This initiative is presented as an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions,” said Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN. “The United States clearly sees it cannot be separated from the much larger and more radical ideological project it belongs to.”
the wokes like it, so it is per definition bad
some times I feel like informing these people that woke people really enjoy breathing air and drinking water :l
Not even Israel voted with the US this time. Take this opportunity for reflection.
It’s because they don’t want the world to see it getting bigger as it starts annexing its neighbors’ land.
The new map projection makes land close to equator bigger and land closer to the north and south poles smaller.
Anyone who is not living under a rock knows what is happening and those who still approve genocide don’t give damn they are getting bigger.
The title:
Today, the United Nations voted to adopt a new world map that reflects countries’ true relative sizes
Haters, probably:
let’s still make this about us hating Israel - in comparison to how we hate the US
GJ for the UN. I hope it’ll make good progress in the long run for all of us. More accurate representation of the world - for more adequate and fair decisions and actions.
It’s a common pattern for the General Assembly that essentially all of the world votes together, and then the United States, Israel plus some tiny island nations votes together. This vote struck me as deviating from that pattern because the United States literally stands alone on this issue. Even the number of Abstentions is unusually low.
Ok, thanks for opening the prev.comment a bit more!
It is curious, indeed. 🖐️
Wow, the US government is so paranoid, because how the fuck in your right mind can you find a reason to think “everyone’s out to get me” because others want to edit a map? It’s also funny how they never specify what this “radical ideology” is, despite constantly complaining about it like a child would about their mother not getting them an ice cream.
The radical ideology is called the truth and America hates it. It undermines their precious lies.
Editing maps is only allowed for one person, as we all know /s
I can’t make heads or tails of what point this word salad is actually intending to convey. It sounds like a toddler trying to argue because hes afraid try a new food on his plate.
Sometimes people with really stupid beliefs will dance around saying it clearly because on some level they know how stupid it sounds.
They wanted to rename Africa to New America.
This might be the first time in history Israel voted differently than the United States of America
Guess they will soon not only have their own system of measuring distance, weight and temperature; but also their own system of displaying Earth. They want to live in their own version of reality i guess.
One where the United States is bigger than Russia.
Pardon?
When wereone where
I hate this fucking country
Who doesn’t?
“Nooo, don’t change the mirror to one that reflects things accurately! I like this one better because it makes me look taller, more muscular, and better-endowed!”
It isn’t more accurate than Mercator, it just preserves different features.
When flattening a map, there are 4 competing aspects of the globe you can try to preserve: shape, direction, area, and distance. You can’t preserve all 4 at once. You can try to min-max on 1 or 2 (e.g. Mercator preserves direction and shape since that’s what’s needed for sailing), or you can accept some distortions of all 4 in a compromise projection.
It all depends on the purpose of the map.
My one question is why
Because they’re chauvinists on the way to fascism
Lmao “on the way”.
Shows Greenland’s real size?
trump thinks it’s the same size as the entire US.
Biggest is best?
Abstentions are also no
Abstentions means let the others decide.
Abstentions are explicitly neither yes nor no.
I guarantee you that Donny will make a freedom correct map of the world.
Made out of “gold” and sold to the highest bidders!
Magastan voted no.
I wonder if some people welcome trumps threats to leave nato and the UN. How many peices of logical legislation could pass without the US blocking them.
Well, NATO isn’t about legislation so much as mutual defense. And the UN’s resolutions have as much impact as individual countries permit, in many cases.
It’s often said that the real point of the UN and the security council veto power was to offer the world’s most powerful nations a way to come to a more permanent table and disagree, instead of war being the default threat.
I like that last paragraph.
And yeah, the UN resolutions don’t mean much. But it would still feel a little better if they could pass things that are reasonable without interference.
yeahh I know africa is a lot bigger than we tought but what suprised me as indonesia its very big compared to old map
Did the US vote no, because they are smaller on new maps?
Their stated reason boils down to “New map is woke”.
I hate this timeline.
Greenland is also much smaller in the new map. So in essence they shrunk his ambition down to the size of his little dingleberry and there was nothing he could do but whine.
Or because China looks bigger?
As I heard it, Africa is smaller on map than it should be. “It would be woke to fix that”
Why do we always have to vote the dumbest possible way in these things?
"UN vote on whether we should eat glass: 99% against, US stands alone as In Favor ."
Not eating glass is wOkE.
“Welp, I’m convinced.”
- GOP voters of 2026
IT GIVES MY HAIR A HEALTHY SHINE
“They’re shrinking Greenland, so that I’m less interested in it.” - Donald Trump, probably
I mean, the mercator map was meant for ship navigation, not as a geopolitical bat.
Exactly, which is why it really grinds my gears when people try to present the map as intentionally amplifying some countries at the expense of others. That’s not the point, it’s just a side effect of inventing the first map that could actually be used for long-distance navigation.
For the UN it makes complete sense to use a different projection.
