And most educational institutions around the world still use the Mercator Projection to teach geography in classrooms. However, it was not until the 1970s that the Gall-Peters projection was introduced to a wider audience. In the 1800s, the Gall-Peters Projection was introduced, subverting the Eurocentric proportions of the Mercator Projection and sizing landmasses more accurately. And Europe is at the centre of the map, with the Asia-Pacific to the periphery, when Asia is the globe’s most populous continent, the planet’s largest land mass, and today, the world’s economic nerve centre. In reality, South America is nearly twice as large. Europe - not including Russia - seems to be about the same size as South America. Fourteen Greenlands can squeeze into Africa - but on the Mercator map, the Danish territory is shown almost as large as Africa.Īlaska looks larger than Mexico, when in reality it is smaller. While three Canadas can fit inside Africa, Africa is significantly smaller and less detailed than Canada on the map. The projection has been criticised for being widely misleading as it significantly distorts proportions. This Italian political cartoon shows a map of Europe and the Near East at the end of the Russo-Turkish War, with most countries personified as human figures, the major exception being Russia which is a large octopus, followed by Greece as a crab French vintage propaganda map from 1917 shows German invasion as giant octopus during World War I The West’s map hegemonyĪ common template used for world maps today is called the Mercator projection, created by European cartographer Geert de Kremer in 1569. Propaganda maps were also popular during the Cold War. While a British cartographer used the octopus to depict Russia, a French cartographer depicted Winston Churchill as the mollusc. Propaganda maps were popular during and even before the 20th century when warring nations used cartography to further their war-time agenda, painting the opposing nations as negative caricatures.ĭifferent symbols were used on maps: for example, the octopus with its multiple tentacles was used to depict the aggressor. “A good propagandist knows how to shape opinion by manipulating maps,” wrote Monmoneir. However, maps are also deliberately skewed to distort people’s perceptions of spaces and issues, he argued. Hence, they are a projection of how people see the world – projections that are full of preconceived ideas and biases. Maps are made by people, historically those with power. He showed that condensing complex, three-dimensional spaces onto a two-dimensional sheet of paper is bound to be reductive. “Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it is essential,” wrote cartographer Mark Monmoneir in his book How to Lie with Maps. The Nakba map of 2006 sparked controversy and anger among some Israelis, who reported it to their local police for being an “assault on true geography”.īut what is true geography? Do the maps we see every day accurately represent borders and spaces? Do maps lie? Keep reading list of 4 items list 1 of 4 Do-it-yourself cartography of the Middle East list 2 of 4 ‘For my daughter’: A hostel owner’s quest to put Tataouine on the map list 3 of 4 Mapping the battle for Ukraine’s Bakhmut list 4 of 4 A brief history of Israel-Palestine conflict in 10 maps end of list
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