Ever looked at a world map and wondered why Greenland is basically the same size as Africa? Honestly, it’s a bit of a shock when you find out Greenland can actually fit into Africa about fourteen times. Most of us grew up with the Mercator map on the classroom wall, and it’s kinda shaped how we see the world without us even realizing it. But there’s this other one—the Gall Peters projection map—that’s been causing a massive stir for decades. It doesn't look "right" to most people. It's stretched, it's weirdly long, and it makes Europe look tiny.
But here is the kicker: in terms of actual land area, it's way more honest than the map you're used to.
The Map That Started a War
In 1973, a German historian named Arno Peters stood up at a press conference and essentially told the world their maps were racist. He wasn't a cartographer, which really annoyed the pros. Peters argued that the standard Mercator projection was a tool of colonial "eurocentrism" because it artificially inflated the size of northern, wealthy nations while shrinking the global south.
He didn't actually invent the math for it, though.
A Scottish clergyman named James Gall had actually designed the exact same projection back in 1855. Gall was a bit of a "gentleman scientist" who presented it at a meeting for the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Nobody really cared back then. It sat in a drawer for over a hundred years until Peters "rediscovered" it and turned it into a political movement.
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Why does it look so... stretchy?
Mapping a round earth onto a flat piece of paper is a mathematical nightmare. You basically have to choose what you're willing to lie about.
- Mercator maps choose to lie about size to keep shapes and directions accurate. This was great for 16th-century sailors who didn't want to crash into rocks, but it makes Canada look like a behemoth.
- The Gall Peters projection map chooses to lie about shape to keep the size accurate. It's an "equal-area" projection. If a country is twice as big as another on the globe, it will be twice as big on this map.
The result is that South America and Africa look like they've been pulled like taffy. They are long and thin. Meanwhile, Europe gets squashed down into a tiny little strip at the top. It feels "wrong" because we’ve been conditioned to see Europe as a central, massive power.
The Boston Controversy
You might think this is just nerdy map talk, but it has real-world consequences. In 2017, the Boston Public Schools system made a huge move. They decided to phase out the Mercator map and introduce the Gall Peters projection map into their classrooms.
The goal was "decolonizing the curriculum."
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They wanted kids to see that Africa is actually massive and that the "Third World" isn't just a collection of small dots at the bottom of the world. It caused a media frenzy. Some people praised it as a win for social justice, while others—mostly cartographers—were pulling their hair out.
Geographers like Arthur Robinson (who designed his own famous projection) were famously harsh about the Peters map. One critic famously said the map looked like "long winter underwear hung out to dry on the Arctic Circle."
Proponents like Ward Kaiser, who wrote A New View of the World, argued that the map is a "corrective" to a world view that treats the equator like an afterthought. They aren't saying the map is "perfect." They're saying it's a necessary shock to the system.
Facts You Should Probably Know
- Africa's True Size: On a Gall Peters map, you can clearly see that Africa is larger than the US, China, and most of Europe combined.
- The UN Connection: The United Nations has used this projection for years because it emphasizes the "equality" of nations based on their physical presence.
- The "West Wing" Effect: The map actually got a major pop-culture boost in a Season 2 episode of The West Wing, where a group called "Cartographers for Social Equality" tries to convince the White House to switch maps.
Is It Actually Better?
If you're trying to navigate a ship, the Gall Peters map is useless. You'll end up in the wrong ocean. If you're trying to see what countries actually look like from space, it's also pretty bad. The shapes are just too distorted.
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But if you want to understand the scale of human life and resources? It’s eye-opening.
Most modern geographers actually prefer something called the Robinson Projection or the Winkel Tripel. These are "compromise" maps. They don't get the size perfectly right, and they don't get the shapes perfectly right, but they look "natural" to the human eye.
The Gall Peters projection map isn't trying to be pretty. It’s trying to be a political statement. It’s a reminder that every map you look at has a bias. There is no such thing as a "neutral" map. When you flatten a sphere, you're making a choice about what matters most.
How to Use This Knowledge
If you want to get a better handle on how the world actually looks, don't stick to just one map.
- Download a "True Size" app: There are websites like TheTrueSize.com that let you drag countries around a Mercator map to see how they grow or shrink. It’s wild.
- Buy a globe: Seriously. It's the only way to see the world without any projection bias.
- Check your sources: Next time you see a map in a news article or a textbook, look at the corners. See if it mentions the projection.
Understanding the Gall Peters projection map is less about learning geography and more about learning how to think critically about the information we’re fed every day. It teaches us that even something as "objective" as a map can be a matter of perspective.
If you are a teacher or a parent, try hanging both a Mercator and a Peters map side-by-side. The conversation that follows is usually way more interesting than any standard geography lesson. You'll start seeing the world as it really is: a massive, diverse place that can't be easily pinned down to a single sheet of paper.