Science · 6 pages · 12 min
Why Greenland looks huge on many maps
Mercator maps stretch high latitudes, so Greenland is drawn far larger than its area.
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From the opening
Greenland looks huge on many maps because those maps use the Mercator projection, which enlarges areas more and more as latitude increases. Greenland sits high, so it is stretched far more than equatorial lands of greater real area, including Africa. The opening covers why parallels spread with latitude, what sailors received in exchange, and why Africa is the fair comparison.
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Inside
- Why parallels spread with latitude
- What sailors received in exchange
- Why Africa is the fair comparison
- Why web maps kept the habit
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- The Mercator projection and rhumb lines
- Area distortion that grows with latitude