The Peters Projection

[Ol' Dirty]

For those of you who are unaware, the Peters Projection is, according the Wikipedia: [a] configurable equal-area map projection (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Map_projection) known as the equal-area cylindric or cylindric equal-area projection. Proponents argue the the size of Eurasia is grossly overestimated, and that the Northern Hemisphere is needlessly exagerated at the expense of the South.

This, of course, had massive political implications. Conventional maps represent Eurasia as being the world's largest landmass, not Africa. My Father is a proponent of the Projection, but I called BS. With satellite imaging, GPS and centuries of cartographic knowledge, it would be practically impossible to hide something that glaring.

I'm no expert, and I've only taken a geography class in my freshman year. Could other people with more experience tell me what they think?

[TheCagedLion]

I'll check up on this on some GIS-software at university and get back to you tomorrow

[Sun at Eight]

You misunderstood the Peters Projection. It is not revealing some secret conspiracy hidden over centuries, but is, as you say, a "configurable equal-area map projection". The earth is three-dimensional and a flat representation of the whole earth inevitably has distortions. In the Mercator the distortions involve the increasing size of things such as landmasses the further one gets from the equator, since it is intended for navigation and keeps latitude lines straight. The classic example is if one compares the size of Greenland and Africa. Africa is far larger than Greenland in reality, and this is completely misrepresented on a Mercator projection. The Mercator projection, although it is useless for comparing the relative size of things, has become the standard due to the aforementioned navigational use. It is also relatively accurate regarding the shape of landmasses. This navigational use is intrinsically tied into colonialism and that probably affected its popularity among Europeans more than relative land mass sizes, although it was probably pleasing to the British to see themselves as larger than they actually were.

The Peters Projection abandons accurate shapes and usefulness for navigation to make a map that represents relative area accurately. That is its only purpose.

Coincidentally or not, Arno Peters also advocated socialism's feasibility with new computing technology (addressed in RevLeft member Paul Cockshott's excellent Towards a New Socialism - available for free on the Internet and not linked since as a new member I cannot post links yet).

(This is not to get into who actually created the "Peters Projection")

[pastradamus]

Im a fan of the peters projection. I admire the way it was an attempt to abandon the common practice of making the more "important" countries larger. I like the way when one looks at the peters projection they can clearly make out that Sudan is Africas biggest state for example, whereas upon conventional maps this really isnt that obvious.

Peters projection:
http://www.mapcenter.com/addon_pics/odt_wor_pp_po_02.jpg

Conventional Map:
http://www.mapsofindia.com/worldmap/world-map.gif


One Striking thing to note here is that India ( 3,287,263 square kilometres) is correctly much bigger than Scandanavia in the Peter's projection but looks almost equal on a conventional map.