In this issue
No. 124 June 1983

A new map of the earth

As you will have realised by now, this month’s New Internationalist takes a rather different form. Unfold it a bit further and you will be faced with a remarkable new map.

This map of the work of German historian Arno Peters. He argues that traditional world maps distort the way Western Nations view the rest of the earth. In particular, he says, maps based on Mercator’s projection place Europe in the centre of the world and show the ex European colonies as relatively small and peripheral.

The Peters map is an equal area one – it shows countries according to their true scale. And this makes a dramatic difference to the portrayal of the Third World. India, which on Mercator’s map appears smaller then Scandinavia, is shown correctly on the Peters map to be nearly three times the size.

This map forms the second part of a New Internationalist special focus on political geography – on how people use and experience the places in which they live. Part 1 last month included reports on communities as diverse as Australian Aborigines, African school teachers and European Gypsies. It also included an explanation of the Peters projection and why it makes the world look quite so different. A part of that article is reprinted opposite.

Arno Peters first published his new projection in German back in 1974 and we have been waiting impatiently for the first full English version to appear. Eventually it will seem that the only thing to do was to step onto the world of cartography and publish it ourselves. So New Internationalist readers have in their hands this month the first ever English edition – we hope you will think that the effort was worthwhile and will fine the map useful.

Our thanks go to the United Nations Development Programme who helped us in this venture and to Dr Peters himself for his co-operation and support.

FIGURE 1 Wrapping a sheet of paper round a globe and transferring the information across to it horizontally gives a ‘cylindrical projection.’

FIGURE 2 This map will portray countries at the equator fairly accurately but seriously distorts those nearer the poles. Lines of latitude are squeezed closer and closer together. North-south and east-west directions are ‘true’ on this map but intermediate directions like north-west cannot be plotted as straight lines.

FIGURE 3 Mercator’s projection moves the places on the map so that they fall under correct compass directions. But to achieve this the lines of latitude have to be moved further apart as you near the poles.

FIGURE 4 This makes areas near the poles relatively bigger. So Europe (9.7 million square kilometers) seems larger than South America (17.5 million square kilometers) and the – infinitely large – polar regions cannot be shown at all.

FIGURE 5		FIGURE 6
Subsequent attempts to show country sizes more accurately use ‘rounded grid systems like Aitoff’s. These, however, maximise the shape distortion at the edges. The normal ‘Eurocentric’ version (left) distorts America while the American version (right) pushes Europe into a corner. In either case Australia comes off second best.

FIGURE 7 Rounded grids also create directional confusion, you must follow the grid lines carefully to see which point lies east or south or another. And on simpler maps of this type the grid lines are often left out.

FIGURE 8 The Peters projection is faithful to both north-south and east-west directions and to the relative areas of countries. Shape distortion is evenly spread; in this case the shapes of countries along the 45 degree latitudes are shown more truly than those along the equator.

Click here to see the Peters' Projection World Map.

The contour drawing on which the front cover is based, has been reproduced
with the permission of Energy Mines and Resources Canada.