Map Wars

A map of the world expresses a point of view. A correct model of the earth is a sphere - or an ellipsoid to be precise. Photographs of the earth from space provide comforting reassurance on that point. If you wish to know the relative positions of the continents and the oceans you should go out and buy yourself a globe and spin it around. But a globe cannot be pinned to a wall or printed in a book. For that you need a two-dimensional representation. This is where the problems start since you cannot project three-dimensional information onto a flat plane without making certain assumptions. The arguments between cartographers mostly concern what those assumptions should be. The simplest two-dimensional representation is a ‘cylindrical’ projection - what you get by wrapping a sheet of paper around a globe and simply transferring the information across. This means it indicates true north and south. So, Newfoundland is directly north of Venezuela and it appears that way on the map. East and west similarly are also indicated correctly. Such a map demonstrates what is called ‘fidelity of axis’. One of the longest-lived cylindrical projections was based on the needs of sixteenth century navigators. Gerhard Kremer, a Flemish mathematician, produced his view of the world in 1569. ‘Kremer’ translates to ‘merchant’ in English and ‘mercator’ in Latin. And the Mercator projection survives to this day in many books and maps. Mercator’s projection of the world also shows intermediate compass directions like north-west more or less accurately. So, it is possible to conclude from his map…