a diy world map for cartographic nihilists

On the first day of my 7th grade Geography class our teacher asked us to draw the world map off the top of our heads.  My mind went blank.  I looked over at my friend’s map which she copied off of a textbook she had opened under the table.  I had originally drawn my map with Japan (where I lived) in the middle, but after seeing her’s, I erased it and drew Africa in the middle instead.  I felt mildly self conscious of how I didn’t do that in the first place.  

I learned last year that the map my friend drew, which I was convinced was The Correct Map, is called the Mercator projection. The Mercator projection is known for its enlargement of the Northern hemisphere which was used by the British Empire to exaggerate the amount of land they occupied.  I also found that people get kind of aggressive about criticizing Mercator projection, arguing that it’s a remnant of colonialism that perpetuates the view that developing countries are inferior.

I initially aligned myself with these staunch Mercator opposers but shortly afterwards I realized that I don’t particularly care about the size of any country on a map.  While I do agree that the intent behind deliberately using the Mercator projection is unjust, I think it’s petty and stupid more than anything.  Greenland is famous for looking significantly larger in Mercator projection (relative to other countries) compared to its real size on the surface of the Earth.  Does it personally threaten me that Greenland is big?  No…?  

But I’m not ok with the Mercator projection.  I just don’t dislike it exclusively.  What bothers me is the prevalence of the Mercator projection which managed to instill in me, from a young age, one ‘correct’ image of the world. 

It’s kind of an insane thing to try to represent a sphere on a sheet.  It’s also kind of an insane thing to imagine what the ground looks like from distances 10^(some large number) times our heights.  Yet, because I’m so accustomed to seeing Mercator projection maps, they feel so normal.  I’m tired of being cool with that.  I’m tired of looking at a world map and pretending like I understand it and accept that that’s what the world looks like.

So I decided to make my own maps that make sense to me.  To do this I used the technique pioneered by the British Empire: exploiting scale.

Above, every country is scaled to have the exact same area of 1,348,345 km2 so every single country gets equal representation!  1,348,345 km2 is the average area of a country in Mercator projection - if you were curious, now you know. 

This one’s called America’s nightmare.

China, Japan, Slovakia, Cuba, and Nigeria rule the world!

It would only be right if everybody was able to modify and make their own maps as well so I made this diy world map website where anyone can make any country as big or as small as they want.  You can make your favorite country really really big and explode. Or you can make it really small and hide it from everyone so no one gets to see it.  I just hope it makes sense to you.

(If you ever find yourself in a Geography class being asked to draw a world map and you draw your own personal world map and your instructor tells you it’s wrong, I blame the colonizers - they started it!)