4 ms·

> Africa's misrepresentation on world maps is not just a cartographic error - it's a narrative issue > "world's longest misinformation and disinformation" abou

by cisc 11d ago

> Africa's misrepresentation on world maps is not just a cartographic error - it's a narrative issue > "world's longest misinformation and disinformation" about Africa It's not a cartographic error, a narrative issue, misinformation, or disinformation. The Mercator projection was used because it made it easy to navigate using straight lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection#Marine_navigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection#Marine_nav... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhumb_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhumb_line

prmph 10d ago
> The Mercator projection was used because it made it easy to navigate using straight lines: But, why should a map made for sea navigation continue to be the map used for everything else? The vast majority of us are not using a map for navigating at sea. I am even of the view that there should not be one map that everyone defaults to. Use the map that is appropriate to your use case. But if there should be one general, default map, the Marcator projection ranks low in modern relevance for that.