Welcome to the New World Map

Yesterday the UN General Assembly voted to replace its traditional world maps - based on Mercator - with a map that more accurately reflects the size of Africa - based on the 2018 Equal Earth map.My Equal Earth vs Web Mercator map allows you to compare how these two maps depict the world side-by-side. Drag the handle in the middle of the map and you can switch between the two projections. You can also pan and zoom around the map and the two views will move together.Equal Earth vs MercatorThe problem with Mercator isn't that it is a "bad" map. Quite the opposite: Gerardus Mercator's 1569 projection was designed for sea navigation, where preserving angles and directions is enormously useful. The problem is that it is a rather unfortunate choice when you want to compare the size of countries and continents.Mercator increasingly exaggerates areas as you move away from the Equator. Greenland is the classic example. On a conventional Mercator world map it can look comparable in size to…