![]() These maps from Adam Symington help to answer these questions, using the Gridded Livestock of the World database from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which models livestock densities from 2010 around the world. So where are the various types of livestock concentrated in the world? And how do national consumption habits influence animal husbandry? Mapped: Global Livestock Distribution and DensityĬombined together, meat, dairy, and eggs make up nearly 18% of the average person’s diet.īut in order for these meat and animal products to reach consumers, a vast global livestock industry-one supporting the livelihoods of 1.3 billion people globally-operates in fields and farms largely unseen from major cities. We have since updated it, adding in new content for 2021. As people become more accustomed to equal area maps and seeing the Earth in its spherical form, misconceptions about the size of continents may become a thing of the past. In a more globally connected world, geographic literacy is more important than ever. The exact angles of roads and borders are preserved in this projection. Just zoom all the way out at □□ /CIkkS7It8dĪt closer zoom levels, users are typically using maps for things like navigation, which the Mercator projection was designed for. With 3D Globe Mode on Google Maps desktop, Greenland's projection is no longer the size of Africa. The result is a more accurate depiction of countries and landmasses. The Earth is depicted as a globe at further zoom levels, sidestepping map projection issues completely and displaying the world as it actually is: round. Google, whose map app is used by approximately 150 million people per month, took the bold step of using different projections for different purposes in 2018. This includes in the classroom, where young minds are first learning about geography and forming opinions on the relationships between countries. In the GIF above, Scandinavian countries no longer loom imposingly over their European neighbors, and Canada deflates to a size similar to the United States.ĭespite inaccurate visual features-or perhaps because of them-the Mercator projection has achieved widespread adoption around the world. This visualization also highlights how distorted neighboring countries can look in Mercator projection. The continent of Africa takes a much more prominent position in this new, correctly-scaled map. ![]() Greenland, which appears as a massive icy landmass in Mercator projection, shrinks way down. Visually speaking, Canada and Russia appear to take up approximately 25% of the Earth’s surface, when in reality they occupy a mere 5%.Īs the animated GIF below-created by Reddit user, neilrkaye – demonstrates, northern nations such as Canada and Russia have been artificially “pumped up” in the minds of many people around the world. Mercator’s map inadvertently also pumps up the sizes of Europe and North America. The vast majority of us aren’t using paper maps to chart our course across the ocean anymore, so critics of the Mercator projection argue that the continued use of this style of map gives users a warped sense of the true size of countries-particularly in the case of the African continent. The new map was well-suited to nautical navigation since every line on the sphere is a constant course, or loxodrome. In 1569, the great cartographer, Gerardus Mercator, created a revolutionary new map based on a cylindrical projection. There are various trade-offs with any map style, and those trade-offs can vary depending on how the map is meant to be used. With any map projection style, the big challenge lies in depicting a spherical object as a 2D graphic. Maps are hugely important tools in our everyday life, whether it’s guiding our journeys from point A to B, or shaping our big picture perceptions about geopolitics and the environment.įor many people, the Earth as they know it is heavily informed by the Mercator projection-a tool used for nautical navigation that eventually became the world’s most widely recognized map. ![]() This Clever Map Shows the True Size of Countries
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