In a previous post, I talked about how no 2D World Map can be fully accurate and present each part of The Earth exactly as it is in real life, so people use different projections. The most common is The Mercator Projection which sacrifices accurate depiction of size to give an accurate representation of a country’s shape and preserve direction. But what other projections are there? Read this post to find out about some other weird but interesting projections people have come up with.
AuthaGraph Projection
The AuthaGraph was created by a Japanese Architect, Hajime Narukawa in 1999. The AuthaGraph manages to preserve both size and shape. A few disadvantages that the map has is that it doesn’t preserve direction as well. Meaning that if you drew a straight line from The U.K to Cuba, and you followed that line at the exact angle you drew it in, there would be no guarantee that you would eventually reach Cuba. This map is centered on The Pacific ocean, which might be a hard layout to get used to, but in my opinion, shows just how massive The Pacific is!
Dymaxion Projection
This map is unique in the fact that it is projected onto an icosahedron, a three-dimensional shape with 20 faces. The map has many interruptions to preserve shape and size. R. Buckminster Fuller released this projection in 1954. However, The Dymaxion map does a poor job at preserving direction because of its many interruptions. The map can be folded and unfolded into 2D and 3D shapes and can be centered on any object.
Gall-Peters Projection
The Gall-Peters Projection is the complete opposite of The Mercator Projection. It manages to preserve size but butchers the shape of the land. The shapes of countries are heavily distorted, mostly by being stretched vertically.
Robinson Projection
The Robinson Projection shows neither the shape nor size perfectly, but settles on a nice compromise between the two. The size of Greenland & Antarctica is shrunk to be more believable, unlike The Mercator, And The shape isn’t as distorted as The Gall-Peters. The map is named after James Gall and Arno Peters.
Here is the Mercator Projection for you to compare The Robinson with:
As you can see, Greenland and Antarctica have shrunk to more realistic sizes, while the shape doesn’t have any major noticeable distortions.
