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PaperclipPerfector  7hr ago (text post)   190 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 10, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Front-page news on Reddit: The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution recommending the Equal Earth projection (pseudocylindrical, equal-area) over the Mercator projection (cylindrical, conformal). This is the culmination of a campaign that has been backed by the African Union for the past year.

The General Assembly

[Two pages of preamble]

(1) Affirms that cartographic distortions of continental sizes inherited from history have cognitive, educational, cultural, geopolitical and socioeconomic impacts and constitute historical biases, the correction of which will promote recognition, justice and development, particularly with regard to the African continent;

(2) Recognizes that the Mercator projection, widely used around the world, particularly distorts, from the perspective of area representation, continental masses located far from the equator, resulting in a proportional shrinkage of Africa and other regions;

(3) Declares that the Equal Earth cartographic projection offers a more accurate representation of the sizes of continental landmasses and to this end is a relevant option for improving the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world;

[Two pages of "emphasizing", "encouraging", "inviting", and "urging"]

The resolution does not actually require the Equal Earth Projection to be used, even internally at the UN.

Vote summary:

VoteCount
Yes164
No1 (USA)
Abstain6
(Not present)22

Comparison between cylindrical equal-area projection (Behrmann variant) and Equal Earth projection:

OutputCylindrical equal-areaEqual Earth
Notes—θ = asin(√(3)/2⋅sin(φ))
A1 = 1.340264
A2 = −0.081106
A3 = 0.000893
A4 = 0.003796
x√(3)/2⋅λ2√(3)λcos(θ)/(27A4θ8 + 21A3θ6 + 9A2θ2 + 3A1)
y2/√(3)⋅sin(φ)A4θ9 + A3θ7 + A2θ3 + A1θ
ShapeFamiliar rectangleWeird dirigible
Verdict♥️🤮

Previous discussion of map projections

(If you hate all map projections and want to pretend that you're looking at a physical globe, use the orthographic projection—or, if you're really deviant, the general perspective projection.)

I saw someone post a map of the world showing country size as a function of economic output:

https://x.com/randomnikanona/status/2096669789590811083

It’s a bit suspicious that the poster is Russian and Russia is very long but very very thin…

The technical term is "cartogram".

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