Comment by holgerschurig
6 hours ago
Weird title. Cargography constantly challenged itself. Look at some of the possible projections at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projections
They all compromise on something to enhance something else. You simply can't map the surface of a 3d shere (approximation of the earths globe) onto a 2d flat surface.
And so we have projections galore. And anyway was (and is) always free to use whatever fits best.
It is insane how the big mistake lasted. After seeing each country before and after side by side on a website, it's insane how big the difference in false sizes of countries compared.
Like Greenland vs Africa, come on man!! This must be a joke (and still lasted 457 years).
Do you think the UN was using Mercator before this vote?
I don't think so. They usually don't use what has not been agreed on officially.
And the article text does a pretty good job (to me as a layman who was aware Dymaxion existed but doesn't spend much time thinking about this) of illustrating, just the title seems to be for a much more reactionary nonsense article.
I agree cartography has always been challenging itself, it is possible the size of most nations have been miscalculated.
> it is possible the size of most nations have been miscalculated
Huh? Are you a Flat Earth believer? We can literally see the countries from space. The problem wasn't that we don't know how big they are but that, as your parent explains, it is not possible to have a flat map which accurately depicts a (roughly) spherical terrain. A flat map has to be "wrong" in some sense and this change picks a map which made a trade off that favours accurate size (e.g. ratio between size of Greenland and Africa)
> You simply can't map the surface of a 3d shere (approximation of the earths globe) onto a 2d flat surface.
This would be an easier problem to solve if Flat Earthers were right. (semi-/s)