The Gall-Peter's Projection

I was amazed when, many years ago, I first saw the Gall-Peter's projection map. I couldn't believe how different the world was compared to how I'd always imagined it.

Here's a funny and interesting clip from the West Wing that explains things pretty well and gets at the heart of the problem with the traditional Mercator projection map.



We have a map of the world in our kitchen which we use with the kids for educational purposes. I really tried to get a Gall-Peter's projection but the only kids-friendly map was a pseudo-Mercator, which was frustrating.

Amazingly Google uses a Mercator projection, which admittedly is actually more useful for navigation, but this helps to continue to reinforce the message that Western countries are bigger (and therefore 'greater') than they actually are.