Rewind maps. The Peter's projection map. Mercator map

Peter’s projection map

Mercator maps

The Peters Projection World Map is one of the most stimulating, and controversial, images of the world. When this map was first introduced by historian and cartographer Dr. Arno Peters at a Press Conference in Germany in 1974 it generated a firestorm of debate. The first English version of the map was published in 1983, and it continues to have passionate fans as well as staunch detractors.

This highlights an example of an exercise we do based on power.  Highlighting the traditional map of the world (The Mercator map) as an untrue representation of the world, even though it has been used as an 'educational' tool for over 400 years.  The Peter's Projection map however has been adopted by UNICEF, UNIDEP and other United Nations units as a true map of the world.

At first sight the Peters map of the world does look peculiar. A huge Africa dominates the centre with the distended southern part of the continent stretching down like an elephant's trunk. And across the top Russia appears to have been sat on by the same animal, to make it fit the space.

But where does the distortion lie - in this map or in our expectations? Arno Peter's new projection of the world has produced its share of both controversy and converts. Its most attractive aspect is that it presents all countries according to their true surface areas. Most of us assume that this is what all maps do anyway - so we may be surprised to learn about the distortions in the maps that we do use.

In answer to a question as to why a historian would undertake such a challenging cartographic problem, Peter's replied:

"I ran into this problem as I prepared an atlas to (look at) …..world history.  Because my world history brings to mind people of the 'Third World' (Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Indians, Chinese) as the originators of the culture of Man, I could not use a world map like the Mercator [which] shows the countries of these people in a size much too small for their importance in history".

As far back as 1902, a cartographer warned, "People's ideas of geography are not founded on actual facts but on Mercator's map." (Monmonier, 21) In 1947, a U.S. State Department geographer wrote in Scientific Monthly that the "use of the Mercator projection for world maps should be abjured [renounced] by authors and publishers for all purposes." Robinson further reiterated this position in his first edition of his Elements of Cartography textbook, issued in 1953, when he called the Mercator projection "of little use for purposes other than navigation."