Total commoner here that does not understand projection and such on maps, but I know that the popular map and commercial globe somehow does not show the true size of a country/area.

My first question is, how could a globe (which supposed to be a representation of earth from space) does not represent true size of an area?

Second one, can we produce a map that shows the true size of an area but can also be used for navigation?

  • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Globes are correct, or close enough to it. What’s not correct is any 2D representation. You have to distort the shape to make a 3d globe into a 2d map. How they choose to do that distortion is what’s referred to as the projection. There’s pros and cons to each projection type, but you basically have to choose between keeping the shape right and the size right. Check out the weird looking maps on here. You could technically still navigate with them, but it would be weird. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-area_projection