Comment by goodcanadian
8 hours ago
Decades ago, when I was a child, I viewed the Mercator projection as old fashioned and stupid. In fact, I rarely saw it. Most maps were Robinson's projection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_projection). It baffles me that anyone still uses Mercator projection for any serious purpose.
Robinson was a pretty decent compromise map but still has significant distortion far away from the equator. It is less distorted than Mercator but still tries to present a pleasing view of the world.
Mercator is still preferred for navigation because it preserves angles (that's why Google Maps uses it). Neither Robinson nor Equal Earth are great for preserving angles.
I think it's appropriate for the United Nations to adopt a map that seeks to preserve landmass sizes over Mercator which is only useful for navigation. I think Robinson is a compromise that doesn't perfectly maintain angles nor accurately reflects sizes but lands somewhere between the two "extremes"
> It baffles me that anyone still uses Mercator projection for any serious purpose.
Tell me you've never done any serious navigation off a map or chart without telling me...
I've done some serious navigation off charts, but never once used a Mercator projection — all the charts i've used have been Lambert conformal conic projection.
Ha. I have, and it probably was Mercator or something close to it . . . I probably should have clarified that I meant world maps (or continent scale, at least) where I would argue it's a pretty shit projection even for navigation purposes.
> It baffles me that anyone still uses Mercator projection for any serious purpose.
The article is just strawmaning our past, as is fashionable. Ironically the same author published an article warning against misinformation just a week prior: https://www.not-ship.com/normalize-debunking-each-other/