The World Map That We All See Is A Myth! Take A Look At Some Interesting Facts About World Map.

thynkfeed team

Whatever you see, my friend, is a lie – it is not true, it is a myth. If I say this to you? Would you believe it? Obviously, no. Right? Well, this actually holds true in the case of geographical maps that we see today. The geopolitical map that we use today is also known as Mercator Map developed by a European cartographer named Gerardus Mercator.

This was developed at a time when trade routes were shifting from land to sea in search of finding new markets beyond national geographies for buying & selling products and it was very difficult to find a route through the sea. So, Mercator developed a map for sailors that will help them navigate the world. And, the second important thing about the map was that it gives the right shapes of countries but at the cost of distorting sizes in favour of the wealthy lands to the north which means that the countries in the north on the map would appear larger than their actual sizes. Because, the challenge that most cartographers face is to portray a spherical map on a flat space which is not possible. Hence, there were two options that Mercator has – either to preserve geographical areas or directions on the map. He chose the latter.

So the map which helped sailors navigate the sea is now used for checking areas and sizes of various countries. The navigation map has turned to a geopolitical map now.

Let’s now look at some interesting facts about the map that we all use today.

1. If you see the world map, North America looks larger than Africa but in reality you can fit North America inside Africa and still have space for other countries like India, Argentina, Tunisia and some other small countries.

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2. On the map, you would see that China looks smaller than Greenland but China is four times bigger than Greenland in reality.

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3. Greenland looks almost 2 times the size of India but is actually 2/3rd of India’s total area.

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http://thetruesize.com/

4. The map suggests that the Scandanavian countries are larger than India whereas India is three times of all Scandavanian countries put together.

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http://thetruesize.com/

5. Africa is almost 14 times larger than Greenland but on the map both look equal in sizes.

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6. Another case would be the size of Russia & Africa. Russia looks twice the size of Africa on the map. But in reality Africa is much bigger in size.

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7. On the map, Brazil looks smaller than Greenland but surprisingly, it is four times the size of Greenland.

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Article Source – Dailymail & Hitxp

Featured Image – Reddit



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