Every map starts with the same lie: The earth is flat. The globe isn’t a portable, affordable, or even satisfying way to look at the world, so these exaggerations are necessary. However, mapmakers ...

The world map is a familiar sight on classroom walls and in atlases, but you might be surprised to learn that it’s not an accurate representation of the Earth. In fact, in terms of country and ...

There is an episode in The West Wing television series in which White House press spokesperson CJ Craig meets a delegation of cartographers, who explain that the standard world map — a Mercator ...

For centuries, the Mercator projection has been one of the most recognizable representations of the world. Developed in 1569 during the height of maritime exploration, it was engineered with a ...

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our ...

The African Union has joined a growing campaign to challenge centuries of cartographic distortion that has long diminished Africa’s true scale on world maps. The bloc of 55 nations recently endorsed ...

In 1569, Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator synthesized existing ideas in navigation and cartography to create a new type of world map. It has stood the test of time: Billions of people would ...

In classrooms, offices, and libraries across the United States, one world map appears again and again: the Mercator projection. Its familiarity makes it feel authoritative, even though it was never ...