Students attending a Boston public school have another world map, the Peters projection map, next to the one most of us are used to looking at.
Boston’s public schools began phasing in the lesser-known Peters projection, which cuts the US, Britain and the rest of Europe down to size. Teachers put contrasting maps of the world side by side and let the students study them.
If you haven’t seen it before, take a look at the Peters projection map at the top of the post. The U.S. and Europe are pretty much the same size as they are on the Mercator map we’re used to seeing, but some of the other land masses get a whole lot bigger. South America is now twice as large as Europe instead of the same size, and Africa is far larger as well. The map has a more accurate north-south arrangement, with the U.S. and Europe farther to the north instead of occupying the middle area. (Fun fact: in the standard Mercator map, Germany is pretty much dead center, except in the maps where the U.S. is moved to the central spot.)
History is written by the winners, and they get to draw the maps as well, putting themselves in the center of the world and shrinking everyone else down to size. The Peters projection map is a more proportional, less Eurocentric approximation of what the spherical world should look like when it’s flattened out on piece of paper. Boston public schools are doing a little something to put the world back into its proper balance.
In an age of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, city authorities are confident their new map offers something closer to the geographical truth than that of traditional school maps, and hope it can serve an example to schools across the nation and even the world.
A map with the Mercator proportions and orientation, the one we’re used to, is below.
This article appears in Mar 23-29, 2017.
Mercatur was introduced and created by a Dutch/Flemish cartographer in the 16th century. It is useful because it accurately maintains directional bearing, so it is a great navigational map and very useful, and it was used by Eurpean Trading companies to conquer the world. Google uses a web mercatur projection for all of it’s mapping. In order to maintain accurate directional bearing the mercatur projection distorts the size and area of land masses near to the poles. This is the root of political bias complaints but this map was not created to present a false picture of the world, that came later. This projection was created as a navigational tool.
Map projections are just that, a projection of an imperfect geoid onto a flat surface. There is no way to maintain area, distance, direction and shape. No matter what projection you choose you will sacrifice one or more than one of these. This newly adopted Peters Projection is an equal area projection, which means it distorts shapes, as anyone can see by looking at it.
I think it is inappropriate for a school to present any single one of these maps without the context. Teaching about basic mapping and geography is important. If we teach children that different map projections serve different purposes they can then seek out the map that best suits their needs for any particular project or application. Basing a map choice on a political platform is just plain wrong. Mercatur and Peters should be hung side by side and viewed as a teaching opportunity, not swapped out every time politics change.
David,
You have a real opportunity to educate people with some of these posts but you seem to prefer copying from a source article and adding opinion instead of context. I know you used to be a teacher and I would think you are capable of adding more than your opinion to these sorts of things. Nuance and context really do matter and things like geography are important. This is a great platform for communication and I think you can do a better job!
Instead of telling people what to think, give them new information and context to try and help them think for themselves. Often it feels like you are doing only the bare minimum to collect your check and I know you are capable of more. I give you a C- for this blog post.
HumanBean, I usually don’t add comments, but I want to correct an assumption you seem to have made. Your comment implies that the Boston schools replaced the Mercatur maps with the Peters projection. If you read the pull-out quote from the article, it states, “Teachers put contrasting maps of the world side by side and let the students study them.”
The nice thing about the Peters projection is that it demonstrates that Europe is far too tiny to absorb millions of immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, who have enormous land masses of their own already.
It’s called New World Order Nathan. Trump knows how bad it will be for the US.
Hi David,
I saw that, but I assumed they meant teaching about social justice using the two maps, not their mathematical or historical contexts. Why did I make this assumption? Because your other quote states “are confident their new map offers something closer to the geographical truth.” Geographical truth? As I stated before, map projections are mathematical in nature, not political, and are the result of trying to fit an imperfect geoid onto a flat surface. There is no pure geographic truth once you have done this. You can make maps that maintain some aspect of geographic truth (distance, direction, area, shape) but you cannot have it all, no flat map is geographically truthful and their merits should be measured by their usefulness as maps within their proper context.
I still think you have an opportunity to add to these kinds of stories instead of regurgitating some other journalists work. The piece you are quoting from is clearly missing accurate non-politicized information about map projections. You are smart and have experience as an educator. Bring some of that to the table here at the Weekly and step up your game!