Also notable that in the centuries following Mercator projection, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the northern parts of South America actually shrunk by the map were regarded as vast, unexplored wildernesses full of resources to plunder (and the northern realms expanded by the projection as inaccessible icy wasteland). Difficult to imagine the Gall-Peters projection making conquistadors and colonists from little European countries more respectful of the inhabitants of the equatorial realms, though I guess they might have got lost more using it...