Maps have been lying to you
All maps (necessarily) lie to you. It is impossible to unwrap the surface of the near-spherical Earth and lay it out as a flat sheet, and so cartographers (map makers) have to decide what features they wish to accurately preserve and then then adjust the projection to fit, so that other things are a compromise. This short video demonstrates some of the surprising effects the popular Mercator projection has on the way we perceive the world.
The best known world map that you will have seen everywhere on Geography classroom walls, this projection designed by Gerardus Mercator (formerly Gerhard Kremer) in 1568 allows you to plot directions anywhere on it without having to correct for the curvature of the Earth, making it ideal for navigation. To achieve this, Mercator mapped the the surface of the world onto a cylinder, straightening all the parallels of latitude and longitude (the faint vertical and horizontal lines traversing the map) and making all the horizontal lines of latitude the same length as the Equator. The downside to this way of mapping the world is that the lines that would have converged to a point at the top and bottom of the globe have been stretched out, increasingly distorting the size and shape of continents the further they are from the Equator.
Assistant Librarian (Promotions) at the University Library. An enthusiastic advocate of libraries, diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice for all, inside and outside the workplace.
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