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PaperclipPerfector  7hr ago (text post)   190 thread views

Transnational Thursday for September 10, 2026

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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.)

Kavrayskiy VII is the best compromise projection:

x = (3λ/2)⋅√(1/3-(φ/π)2)
y = φ

I'll accept Wagner VI too, which is simply a slightly wider version of K7:

x = λ⋅√(1-3(φ/π)2)
y = φ

Kavrayskiy VII is the best compromise projection

Yes, Comrade Kavrayskiy VII is clearly the most principled compromise projection. Winkel tripel and the National Geographic Society are bourgeois nonsense.

I was going to come in here and make a nostalgia argument for a Winkel tripel, but Kavrayskiy VII is clearly more aesthetic, which, re: the original discussion, is the most important property for all these maps. It doesn't make sense to me why area should be the key ontological factor for deciding which map is best. In the modern era, no one is cutting out sections of map to weigh them, or measuring border lengths with a string, or trying to find the rhumb line with a ruler; at least not for serious work and not from a random UN report. If you want to compare areas, clearly a bar chart or a table would be better.

It's not about measuring areas, it's about being able to look at a map and see how big (and consequently important) Africa is.

I see no reason why how big something looks should be more important to visually understanding a map than border and coastline length, relative position, shape, direction, or visual centrality.

Neither do I, but the Africans do. I believe they think that if children look at the map and see

america AFRICA asia

then they will be more attentive to Africa and less likely to consider it the arse-end of the globe.

I’ll be interested to see the reactions when white nationalists start using the new map to point out the relative sizes of Africa and Europe, before asking why the tiny continent should accept any immigrants from the massive continent.

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