Mercator VS. Peters
Today we compare two maps of Mercator and Peters. The biggest difference between them is that one is the drawing map of the earth and the other is the flat map of the earth
The two are quite different, and each has its own use.Here are some of the descriptions I found.
The Peters projection is unique among world maps because the area ratios of all the continents are the same as they are in reality. That is, Greenland doesn’t seem larger than Africa, as the much-more-popular Mercator projection shows. On the Peters projection, the gargantuan continents of Africa and Asia appear quite large, while usually-inflated polar regions such as Canada and Greenland shrink back to their proper sizes.
The Mercator projection, by comparison, grossly distorts the sizes of the continents – causing the Greenland-is-larger-than-Africa effect – but stays true to their shapes. Geographically speaking, the shapes are more important. It is far easier to change the scale of a map for different areas of the world than to adjust the length-width ratio, as one needs to do with Peters. In addition, Mercator only distorts longitudinal distances (except very close to the poles), whereas Peters screws up the scale almost everywhere for both longitude and latitude. This is why Mercator beats out Peters in the world of cartography, and why Google Maps uses a modified Mercator projection. The Peters simply isn’t practical.
The two are quite different, and each has its own use.Here are some of the descriptions I found.
The Peters projection is unique among world maps because the area ratios of all the continents are the same as they are in reality. That is, Greenland doesn’t seem larger than Africa, as the much-more-popular Mercator projection shows. On the Peters projection, the gargantuan continents of Africa and Asia appear quite large, while usually-inflated polar regions such as Canada and Greenland shrink back to their proper sizes.
The Mercator projection, by comparison, grossly distorts the sizes of the continents – causing the Greenland-is-larger-than-Africa effect – but stays true to their shapes. Geographically speaking, the shapes are more important. It is far easier to change the scale of a map for different areas of the world than to adjust the length-width ratio, as one needs to do with Peters. In addition, Mercator only distorts longitudinal distances (except very close to the poles), whereas Peters screws up the scale almost everywhere for both longitude and latitude. This is why Mercator beats out Peters in the world of cartography, and why Google Maps uses a modified Mercator projection. The Peters simply isn’t practical.
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