This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
At first this map seemed perfectly fine to me, but the more I look the weirder it gets.
They also claim South Korea.
They included New Zealand.
They're already leagues ahead of most US primary education text books
Maps with New Zealand.
And Tasmania!
It makes sense they’d centre the Gulf Of Korea though.
Fun fact: Whether North or South are "up" on a map is also completely arbitrary.
They undercut the message buy putting upside down at the top.
I had a teacher in high school who always set his globe that had the text oriented to the nearest pole to have the south pole on top. Anyone switching it would start a conversation about how there isn't a 'correct' up direction.
There is only a "correct" up direction if it has words. The "correct" up would be the direction of the letters.
Or left right
Should have rotated the other way so the sun scrolls satisfyingly top-to-bottom.
Oh god why Mercator?
Mercator really starts to shine when you rotate it by 90 degrees.
This is cursed enough to be an SCP
At this point, Africa is almost represented at its actual size.
This looks like a fantasy world map wtf.
That is common in east Asia in general, and I don't see why not 🤷
Exactly, no one here played Street Fighter 2 on SNES?!
What do you mean america is not the center of the universe?
I'm no map understander, but I think the projection choice might have not been the best cause it seems to skew edges, while the part that it maintains has a lot of empty space (or maybe I'm just used to other maps). Though this is just a random map on a wall so 🤷
The solution is to create a new continent in the Pacific.
I'm trying but they keep cleaning up my plastic
You are used to other maps. Yours are skewed the same way, at least when referencing the versions with curved edges (Robinson), but you just see the same anglo-centric projections, being centered on the prime meridian from the northern hemisphere. The USA is a little bigger than shown on the "normal" map. Greenland is quite smaller than represented. South America/Africa/Australia are significantly undersized. And there's no hope for understanding Antarctica in either version.
Yes, but the maps we're more used to split in the middle of the Pacific, far from all land, more or less at Point Nemo. That minimizes the visual distortion since the land is further from the edges of the map.
Splitting through the Atlantic makes it trickier, because the ocean is significantly narrower, meaning that the land masses are all closer to the edges.
Positioning the map with North at the top is truly arbitrary, but splitting the map in the Pacific actually makes a lot of sense from a usability perspective.
Less land? Sure, but not away from all land. Less people, debatable. The Atlantic split makes it hard to notice Alaska and Russia are miles apart. It also makes it seems like hundreds of pacific islands are at the edge of the world, isolated. It presents the Americas and Asia as, literally, a world apart. No matter where you draw your centerline, the edges have greatly distorted distances. It's not just continental mass that's important, but aquatic distances as well.
I don't think it's particularly debatable that more people live in Europe and Africa and South America (the most notably distorted landmasses in the Pacific-centered map) than in Alaska, Eastern Russia, and the few Pacific isles that aren't tucked right in next to Continental Asia and Australia. The most populous nation negatively affected by a Pacific split is probably New Zealand, and that only represents about five million people. The most populous nation negatively affected by an Atlantic split is probably Brazil, with over forty times as many people.
If you can see South America is distorted as an entire continent in the pictured map, then you should be able to realize the PM split does the same to Eastern Asia. China alone has triple the population of South America. Also going to point out the standard split is not really in the Atlantic, but through England, France, and Spain, and is so far east of the North Atlantic that about 8 African countries lie entirely west of the center.
And it has New Zealand on it!
Most maps in Asia are like this. That’s why growing up I was confused why the US was called the west and East/Southeast Asia was called the far east.
edit: Oops, didn't realize the credit wouldn't be obvious. It's xkcd #503.
I guess it kinda makes sense if you draw the line right down the middle of Germany. Weird, I wonder if there's any historical precedent for that...
Its almost as if some country thinks they are the center of the world.
Well, specifically a couple of countries on either side of the Atlantic.
It’s more like most countries. Maps like the one shown in this post that place Asia as a central focus are common in Asia.
Maybe it’s not national narcissism, rather just focusing on what’s most relevant to any one people.
I think putting the line down the Pacific makes the most sense in most cases. But the national narcissism has historically been a defining characteristic of the UK and the US
It makes as much sense as any other 2D projection of the globe.
I like this one
In this map's defense, it really highlights the value of a northwest passage and all the canals.
Maybe a little more than this one...
Doesn’t the US sometimes use one that puts America in the center and cuts Eurasia in half? Can we agree this one is definitely stupid?
This unlocked some memories, wow.
I've never seen that in the US. That is extremely stupid. Typically maps in the US center around the Atlantic/Europe.
From the US: I grew up with a map like this in the dining room. It was super confusing as s a little kid.
I like it, if only because it places Oceania at the center. They're always pushed aside and it's big sad.
At least it has New Zealand.
Don't the rest of the countries in the region use similar maps? South Korea, Australia, Japan...? I would expect that to be the case, it seems more natural.
