Why not just use KM? We should reduce the number of units of measure in 2026.

The mercator projection has neither a top nor a bottom, it extends infinitely upwards and downwards. Hence all visualizations of it cut it off at some arbitrary point. Making antarctica humorously large does nothing besides make a point.

It's kinda obvious when you see the username, isn't it?

But still, it's not a red flag in this particular example.

The prime meridian being the least skewed area of the equal earth and Robinson projections, with their bulgy nature, actually serves to make them both offer somewhat inconvenient depictions of places like Alaska and New Zealand and Japan.

Mercator is far more globally evenhanded in that regard, being a cylindrical projection.

This is the source of my favorite border dispute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Tahoe#Interstate_boundary...

In summary there is a border dispute between California and Nevada, It was exacerbated by some surveying errors but the real problem appears to be the definitions of the sate borders, California was defined using one method(longitude west of Greenwich) and Nevada was defined using another method (longitude west of Washington) at the time it was thought these two methods were compatible but it later turned out they are not. Congress does not have the authority to change state borders so it is up to the states to reach an agreement. and they have not. So the dispute is still technically on going.

Researching this also lead to the most hilarious passive aggressive thing I have seen in a constitution.

"All territory lying West of and adjoining the boundary line herein prescribed, which the State of California may relinquish to the Territory or State of Nevada, shall thereupon be embraced within and constitute a part of this State."

We really wanted that area east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, they would form a perfect natural boundary, but CA has already claimed it. If CA ever wants to give it up we want to make sure it is explicitly in the constitution to accept it.

Don't give Trump any ideas.

UNGA votes are non binding symbolic grandstanding. This vote does not mean the world agreed to it. its more like the world agreed to think about it.

Will countries actually change their map projections? That has yet to be seen. Maybe they will, maybe they won't That has yet to be seen.

To say that "the world agreed" on something based on a General Assembly resolution is an interesting claim, if rather bold.

Somebody who does not represent anybody "agreed" - not us.

One can still note a poor decision based on its merits.

An equal area projection map is obviously valuable. But it's practically asinine to pick a projection that distorts land features when there are several equal area projections that do not.

Further, Ukraine had to abstain from this vote because they shoehorned in something ridiculous considering the official position of the UN members that Crimea is Ukraine [1], and Crimea is depicted as outside of Ukraine.

I have no idea if there are other hidden yet important changes, since there is hardly any commentary apart from size and shape.

[1] https://ukraine-war-analytics.com/history/international-reco...

Representing a 3D sphere-like surface on a 2d plane definitionally requires compromise.

"The world" is not represented by the UN General Assembly. Did you vote for your representative?

Well, we should use Mercator for its intended purpose (only), which is to accurately show/determine angles for navigation....

> what matters is that we should all just stop using Mercator

Are you insane? Why should one? Is it because if you see a projection you are cognitively impacted? Well, get scholarized, and you will stop getting subconscious suggestions from unintended appearances.

Meanwhile, we will prefer orthogonal axes projections for all the cases where they work well.

By the way: in the territories I know, Mercator is just one of the projections used in texts and schools.

Why? Mercator is useful and familiar to billions of people.

It's a GA resolution. Vanuatu gets the same vote as India. No actually consequential global decisions could ever be made this way, so it's no wonder it's mostly used for symbolic votes like this one.

With computer generated maps, you can just always use a minimally distorting conical or polar projection centered on the exact point you’re focusing on.

That also happens to be broadly what you would get looking straight down at the earth from above that point, which seems like it would also be the least confusing option.

yeah, but when people are free to spin and zoom the virtual globe they understand perfectly how the projection relates to the real object, which they don't when it comes to maps

> The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts.

The UN's explicit purpose is to try and prevent conflict. One of the requirements to join is to renounce the right to use force in international relations except in self-defense.

They do that in a number of ways. One of those is to have these types of symbolic votes. The hope is that by having where everyone stands out in the open, whether on silly things or serious things, it will reduce conflict. Does it work? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Obviously world peace hasn't been achieved. It probably never will be. Nonetheless, that is the goal of the UN. They want to try to fix conflicts.

>The UN isn’t a supranational organization fixing conflicts.

It kinda is, it also have powers to authorize invasions. Not that any of this works in practice, but that's what is for.

Trump didn't unilaterally decide what the rest of the world calls two bodies of water, only the US

> Other than maritime navigation, I can't think of many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection.

Precisely why, I suspect, the US voted against the change. (One of the reasons, at least) I mean, gee, I wonder why the country with the world's largest navy* would prefer maps where you can draw a line on the map between two points and it's the actual compass direction? (Give or take a bit of weirdness near the poles, where the difference between the Earth's rotational pole and its magnetic pole actually matters in a way it doesn't matter below the polar circles).

It's just a symbolic vote, of course, and nobody's navy is going to stop using the so-useful-for-maritime-navigation Mercator just because of this UN vote. But still, I would bet that factored into the reasoning. How much? Who knows, I certainly couldn't say. Except to suspect that it was a non-trivial factor.

* Largest by tonnage — China and Russia have more total ships, with the US in third place by ship count, but the US has nearly half the number of aircraft carriers in the entire world, 11 out of a total of 23, and aircraft carriers are some of the heaviest ships out there. Numbers are from https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/largest-n...

> many tasks where Mercator would be more useful than an equal-area projection.

What sort of tasks besides a size measuring contest is an equal area projection good for?

I'd bet a lot of money that Trump and all the others pushing for a U.S. "liberation" of Greenland also think it is a similar size to Africa, not 1/14th the size.

Africa is 14x larger, but near the same size on the maps our leaders have grown up with for 80+ years.

This has clearly influenced geopolitics. Which is the point of the UN. Which is just a container for what the countries of the world want to agree on. When the UN "doesn't work" for some thing it is because the countries of the world don't want to work together for that thing.

Yeah… the US condemnations of the Axis powers is what really turned the tide, joining into the war later was really a post-script right?

That must be why we all live in awe and fear of giant, mighty Greenland.