Comment by bentley
6 hours ago
> I mean it also accurately depicts relative land mass sizes?
At the cost of distorting shapes and distances.
> compared to Mercator
The UN resolution compared Equal Earth to Mercator, a comparison Equal Earth easily wins in many circumstances. But the comparison should not be to Mercator, but to other widely used projections that do a better job of minimizing distortions generally, such as Winkel Tripel.
The UN resolution is explicit that Equal Earth was chosen specifically for “social justice”–type reasons.
For the purposes of an organization concerned with the demography of actual people, what is the value Winkel Tripel is bringing at the scales it would be used in general application?
Because if you have a specific application then you choose the correct projection for the application.
But if you're just showing a world map, then what's important?
For the UN I'd say relative land mass size is a pretty relevant measure since that's where people live, and where environmental policy takes effect at the level of nation states it deals with.
And it's also the change you can actually pass in a highly subjective area: a slightly different projection no one wants to vote for isn't a viable option in the first place.