The United Nations has appealed to change the most used map in the world. He says that the new map should show the real size of the continents more accurately.
The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution named "Correct the Map".
Its purpose is to correct the error in the Mercator map, in which the size of Africa appears to be approximately equal to Greenland. Whereas in reality Africa is about 14 times bigger than Greenland.
The United Nations has adopted a new map named "Equal Earth Projection". It shows the actual size of different parts of the world more accurately. However, it also has some shortcomings.
There have been efforts for many years to try to represent the spherical Earth's surface more accurately on a flat rectangle. But each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Mercator Map is considered to be the most used global map in the world today. It was created in the year 1569 by Gerardus Mercator of the Flemish region of Belgium.
According to James Cheshire, Professor of Cartography at University College London, the main purpose of making this map was to help European sailors find their way in the sea.
"He wanted a straight line on a map to appear straight in the real world if it followed the direction of the compass," he told the BBC.
He said, "The map was designed for this purpose and it does that job very well."
To get the angles correct on a flat map, Mercator had to increase the distance between the grid lines as he went from the equator to the poles.
Before proceeding further, understand that the Equator is an imaginary line located at zero degrees latitude. It divides the Earth into northern and southern hemispheres. Furthermore, the northernmost and southernmost points of the Earth are called poles.
In the map made by Mercator, the roundness of the Earth is shown in such a way that the countries near the equator appear much smaller than their actual size.
At the same time, the countries near the poles appear stretched and larger.
This happens because it is not possible to show the surface of the spherical Earth completely accurately on a two-dimensional plane map.
Even after more than 450 years, Mercator's map remains the basis of many maps today.
Many maps seen in schools, on TV and on the Internet are based on this. These also include Google Maps.
But critics of the Mercator map say that some places are shown smaller and some bigger than their actual size. This may affect people's thinking.
He says that we often consider bigger things more important. Therefore this kind of map can influence people's thinking.
According to Kenyan geographer Kioko Muendo, this has indirectly reduced Africa's vast resources, large population and investment potential.
"Maps don't just guide travelers; they also determine how an area is viewed and understood politically and economically," he told the BBC.
The purpose of the Equal Earth map is to overcome the problem related to the size of countries in the Mercator projection.
It was created by a team of cartographers in 2018. Its purpose was to show the size and shape of different parts of the land more accurately.
It was inspired by the Robinson Projection of 1963. This is a map in which the entire earth's surface is shown together.
For this reason, before the United Nations adopted it, the African Union member countries also adopted the Equal Earth Map in February.
However, it omits the straight lines that made the Mercator Projection so useful for finding sea routes.
Apart from this, it cannot measure the actual distance between different places.
Cheshire said, "You can get the area right, or get the shape right, or get the distance and direction right. But you can't get all these things exactly right at the same time. Because doing that will bring you back to a circle."
The Peters Global Map was created by German historian Arno Peters in the early 1970s.
This rectangular map is based on a projection first described by the Scottish cartographer James Gall in 1855.
In this projection, the accuracy of the size has been compromised, but an attempt has been made to show the area accurately.
Because of this the areas near the poles appear depressed. At the same time, areas close to the equator appear stretched. This solves the problem related to the size of Greenland and Africa to a great extent.
With the help of this map, the actual size of different landmasses can be compared better. Besides, straight lines of longitude and latitude also remain in it.
Let us tell you that latitude and longitude lines are imaginary lines showing the exact location of a place on the earth's surface. These lines are shown in the form of a grid in the map.
However, in Peter's map the shape of the Earth's landmasses is greatly distorted. Because of this, parts of the land appear somewhat different from reality.
For example, Russia appears much smaller than its actual size.
The straight lines on Peter's map also do not show the actual constant direction of the compass. Therefore it cannot be used for navigation.
Just as a piece of land's apparent size can affect its importance in people's eyes, so too can its location on a map.
Some cartographers have tried to show the map in such a way that south is upwards. Its purpose is to challenge the thinking in which the Global South is considered less important because it is shown below.
It may also be different in different parts of the world as to which continent should be placed in the middle of the map.
These alternative maps provide a different perspective on the world. This view is different from the maps generally shown.
However, these maps do not solve the problem of making a place appear more prominent. These simply change the center and focus of the map.
One solution to the problem of which landmass should be shown in the center of the map, and hence which should appear most prominent, is to not place any landmass in the center.
In such a map, all points are in the correct "azimuth" i.e. horizontal direction from the center.
But when the entire surface of a sphere is shown on a spherical map, some distortion occurs. This distortion also increases as the distance from the center of the map increases.
For example, on United Nations maps, areas near the South Pole appear depressed and stretched.
This happens because the circle becomes much larger towards the South Pole compared to a circle of the same circumference around the North Pole.
