New world map to change the way we think about Australia’s size
Australia will now look bigger on the world map after the UN voted to change the way the Earth is projected into map form. Let’s take a look at maps and how they shape our world view
READING LEVEL: GREEN
After last week’s news dropped about changes to the world map, Kids News decided to journey across time and space to explore cartography* and how it shapes our view of the world.
Australia will look larger on world maps, after the United Nations General Assembly* voted last week to adopt the “Equal Earth” projection over the traditional 16th-century Mercator map.
While the Mercator map was very useful for 16th century shipfaring, with its straight navigational lines and accurate compass bearings, it distorted the size of countries and continents in a way that made landmasses near the poles of the Earth appear much larger than they were. Greenland looked as big as Africa, while Australia appeared much smaller than it really was.
The Equal Earth projection now adopted by the UN shows countries and continents in proportion to their actual surface area on Earth, while still distorting the shape of landmasses near the edges of the curved projection.
MAPS AND MEANING
The change has come after an unusual year for maps and naming.
US President Donald Trump recently caused controversy by ordering Lake Ontario on the Canadian-US border be renamed as Lake America.
The war in Ukraine has led to different regions coming under Russian control, while tensions in Gaza have led to maps being redrawn and territories declared. When maps are redrawn as the result of war, the consequences can be devastating.
Yet history shows us this is nothing new. The partition* of Pakistan and India, the construction of the Berlin Wall*, the Chinese takeover of Tibet – the list goes on. Maps have traced human history in the most fascinating way.
RESHAPING THE WORLD
The change from the Mercator map to the Equal Earth projection will have important implications in the way people view different countries.
The shift will dramatically shrink northern landmasses like Greenland and Europe, while expanding Africa and South America. It will also transform how Australia and the Pacific appear.
According to Australian geographer* Greg Lauer, a founding member of OSGeo Oceania, Australia will look about 10 per cent larger relative to squeezed northern landmasses in the Equal Earth map.
“In simple terms, how we see Australia in terms of size may change,” Mr Lauer told news.com.au. “The actual size of course doesn’t change, but if you look around on the Equal Earth projection, Greenland is a lot smaller and you can better see how Australia compares to Africa, for example.
“It’s more how we’re using different projections to visualise different parts of the world and the Mercator map does a very poor job of visualising the far north or the north poles or the polar regions north and south and of course it makes Greenland look the same size as Africa, which it isn’t.
“Africa’s 14 times the size of Greenland. So other projections like the Equal Earth projection do a better job of visualising the countries as they compare to each other.”
WHY IT WAS ADOPTED
With many traditionally dominant countries in the Northern Hemisphere set to look smaller, and other less dominant countries in places like Africa set to look larger, the campaign has been important for those nations that previously felt misrepresented on the world map.
The push to replace Mercator began with the “Correct the Map” campaign, launched by African advocacy organisations, endorsed by the African Union, and co-sponsored at the UN by Togo and France.
Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey argued that distorted maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions*,” while French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called correcting the representation an “act of truth.”
The UN resolution was supported by 164 countries – however, not all countries voted “yes” to the change.
The United States strongly opposed the resolution. US representative Yaryna Ferencevych argued that “instead of focusing on genuine problems … this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations* and cognitive* justice.”
GEOPOLITICS
Mr Lauer noted that map projections have long carried geopolitical* weight, particularly during the Cold War*.
“Certainly in the Cold War, the US kind of liked the Mercator projection because it showed Russia or the Soviet Union back then as this big monster in the north,” Mr Lauer said. “But in reality, the Soviet Union was only two times bigger than the US, not the five or six times that you’d look at on a Mercator projection.”
While the new map is based on an equal area projection, showing landmasses in correct proportion, the curvature of the vertical lines distorts the shapes of the continents at the map’s edges – which means Australia and New Zealand are seen at an angle.
Traditionally, the world map has been centred over the UK and Europe, dominant powers expanding their influence through hundreds of years of colonisation.
Despite the change to an Equal Earth projection, the orientation has remained the same.
“We in Australia and New Zealand would much prefer the projection to be centred over Australia, and then you’re not going to see much difference,” Mr Lauer said. “But if the projection is centred over the UK … then you’ll see Australia being slightly distorted and New Zealand right at the edge of the map, which of course the Kiwis don’t like at all.”
CHALLENGES IN MAPPING THE WORLD
First designed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer* Gerardus Mercator, the traditional Mercator map was built for ocean navigation. While it preserved accurate compass bearings, it distorted continental sizes by inflating polar regions and shrinking equatorial ones. The distortion occurred because in order to keep the straight lines of the map, the grid lines had to be stretched wider as they moved from the Equator to the poles.
In a blog post for the University of Toronto, GIS Analyst Cole White said making a map involves squashing the three-dimensional Earth into a flat plane using a projection.
“To our dismay, however, it’s physically impossible to perfectly, accurately translate everything from those three dimensions onto a flat plane,” he wrote. “So, every map projection must compromise somewhere. Area, shape, distance, direction, scale, or some combination of these properties are going to be distorted.”
He explained that the Mercator was designed for ships to be able to plot a route as a straight line.
“For marine navigation, this property was much more valuable than scale,” he wrote.
Nowadays, however, with the advent of satellite navigation and other technology, shipfaring is not the main driver behind map depiction.
“Equal Earth prioritises what Mercator does not: the relative sizes of landmasses,” he wrote.
OTHER WORLD MAPS
It hasn’t been the first time cartographers have sought to correct the landmass inaccuracy. The Gall-Peters projection, which was developed by Arno Peters in the 1970s based on cartography from James Gall in the 1800s, created a map that showed land mass to scale, but not to accurate shape.
The UN logo has a map of the world centred around the North Pole, while some cartographers have even tried to flip the map’s orientation.
Ultimately, Mr Lauer believes the UN debate highlights a fundamental truth about how we view the planet.
“Every flat map lies about something. The honest ones kind of tell you what they’re lying about,” Mr Lauer said. “I think every map is an argument, right? And the question for us is, do we know what it’s arguing?”
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GLOSSARY
- cartography: the science, art and technology of making maps
- General Assembly: the main policy making organ of the United Nations
- partition: the division of British ruled India into two independent states: the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe divided the provinces of Punjab and Bengal along the lines of the religious majorities, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Pakistan was created with two different regions, West Pakistan, which is now modern day Pakistan and East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. There was more than 1500km of Indian territory in between both of these regions. The sudden division prompted one of the largest mass migrations ever, with millions displaced and hundreds of thousands to millions estimated to have lost their lives due to conflict erupting in the process
- Berlin Wall: a guarded wall that separated East Berlin from West Berlin and prevented people from East Germany fleeing to West Germany from 1961 to 1989. It was built by the hard-line communist party ruling over East Germany at the time during the Cold War. Once it was forced from power in 1989 during a wave of democratisation that occurred across Eastern Europe, parts of the wall were opened up to allow free passage and the Berlin Wall no longer served as a political and physical barrier between democracy and communism
- geographer: a scientist who studies the Earth, its physical formations, human societies and how human activity interacts with the environment
- collective perceptions: the way a whole society or culture understands or thinks about something
- reparations: compensation or ways to fix wrongdoing by a guilty party
- cognitive: relating to thinking or understanding
- geopolitical: relating to the way geography, politics and economics affect the power of nations and international relations
- Cold War: a long period of political tension between the democratic US and the communist Soviet Union, along with their allies, that lasted from 1945 until 1991
- cartographer: a professional who creates or updates maps
EXTRA READING
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World map of most common last names
Visit a village thriving without time
QUICK QUIZ
1. Why does the Mercator map inflate land masses near the poles and shrink land masses near the equator?
2. What was the purpose of the Mercator map?
3. What benefit does using the Equal Earth projection bring?
4. What compromise was made when creating the Equal Earth projection?
5. What are some examples of events that prompted a change in the way territories are drawn up on maps?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. How and why?
Design an infographic that will show younger kids how and why the Equal Earth projection will change the world map
Time: Spend at least 30 minutes on this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Geography, Visual Communication Design
2. Extension
Do you know how new place names are decided in Australia? Write sentences explaining what you think the process is. Then, use your research skills to find out how this happens. How close was your answer? Do you think your answer was better or fairer? Write a paragraph explaining your thoughts about the real process.
Time: Spend at least 30 minutes on this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Geography, Civics and Citizenship
VCOP ACTIVITY
What happens next?
Imagine the full story turns out to be in three parts and this article is only Part One. Think about what the rest of the story could be and write the next two parts that tell the rest of this story.
Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Critical and Creative Thinking