The Equal Earth Map Explained

by Christopher O'Keeffe September 25, 2026

Why does Greenland look enormous on some maps? Has Africa suddenly become bigger? And can a world map ever tell the whole truth? A closer look at Equal Earth reveals a wonderfully human story about mathematics, seafaring, classrooms and the picture of the planet we carry in our heads.

A good world map can interrupt a perfectly ordinary thought.

You glance at it, find Australia, follow the coast of Africa, then look up towards Greenland. Something feels different. You know these places. You have been looking at their outlines for years. Yet the relationship between them seems to have changed.

That little hesitation is where Equal Earth becomes interesting.

Africa takes up a magnificent amount of room. Greenland looks less imposing. Australia holds its own beside places in the far north. The map invites you to reconsider a picture you may have carried around since primary school.

There is a good explanation, and it begins with a surprisingly difficult domestic exercise. Try peeling an orange in one piece and pressing the skin flat on the kitchen table.

Before long, the peel tears, wrinkles or stretches. Persuading it to lie flat while preserving every part of its original geometry is asking rather a lot of breakfast. The orange has no intention of making this easy.

Mapmakers face a more sophisticated version of that challenge. The Earth is curved. The page is flat. To move between the two, something has to change.

Equal Earth makes one particularly valuable promise: places keep their correct relative areas. A region twice the size of another on the Earth occupies twice the area on the map. That relationship holds near the equator and towards the poles.

For a classroom comparing continents, or a reader trying to understand the size of a place in the news, that is a very useful promise indeed.

I love maps partly because they make the world feel connected. A name you have heard in a news bulletin sits beside an ocean you have crossed, a country you would like to visit, or a place where someone you know grew up. The relationships become visible together. You can let your eyes wander and discover something you had not set out to find.

But familiarity can also make us less inquisitive. Once a particular outline has become our mental picture of the world, a different one can feel wrong before we have asked what it does better.

That is why I think Equal Earth deserves a generous, properly informed explanation. Mercator, Winkel Tripel, Miller and Gall–Peters each have a story worth understanding. You do not need a mathematics degree to appreciate those stories, and you certainly do not need to apologise for having liked a different map.

What follows is my guide to the choices behind the picture: what each projection preserves, what it changes and where I would use it. Along the way, we will look at examples from our world maps collection, with historical Mercator designs from our wider catalogue, and follow the evidence back to the cartographers themselves.

What is the Equal Earth map? The short answer

Equal Earth is an equal-area world map projection introduced in 2018 by Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny. It preserves the relative sizes of land and ocean regions while giving the world a rounded outline and broadly recognisable continental shapes. It changes shapes, distances and directions, so it is particularly useful for global area comparisons, education and thematic mapping rather than navigation.

Its essential advantage over Mercator is readily apparent: moving away from the equator does not automatically give a place more than its fair share of the page.

Why Equal Earth is in the news

On 4 September 2026, the United Nations General Assembly backed a resolution promoting the Equal Earth projection. The vote was 164 in favour, one against (guess who) and six abstentions. The UN’s explanation of the initiative connects it with geographical literacy and more proportionate representations of the world.

The distinction matters: the resolution does not ban Mercator or impose a universal replacement. It encourages Equal Earth and other equal-area approaches where relative size matters. It is not an endorsement of a particular retailer, printed edition or set of political boundary annotations.

We explore the Australian implications in The UN Has Endorsed the Equal Earth Map: What It Means for Australia, Schools and World Maps.

What interests me most is the opportunity behind the headline. A world map is often the quietest object in a room. It sits on a classroom wall, behind a television presenter or above someone’s desk, gradually becoming part of how they imagine the planet. A debate about projection turns that background object into something worth examining.

The worthwhile question is not simply which map has received attention. It is which visual assumptions we have stopped noticing.

I also think it is worth enjoying the fact that cartography has become a talking point. A mathematical design choice is getting people to discuss Africa, Australia, Greenland, the oceans and the way children learn geography. For those of us who believe a map belongs somewhere you can see it every day, that is a rather encouraging development. Especially when the first question in any new conversation I am asked is "Do map shops still exist"?

Let's keep the curiosity going after the headline has passed. Look at the map on your own wall. Find its projection, if it is named. Compare it with another. You don't need to throw anything away to learn something new, and don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.

Five world map projections compared

Here is the practical overview. “Preserves” refers to a mathematical property of the projection, not a guarantee that every label, border or dataset on a finished map is correct.

Projection	What it does well	What changes	Where I would use it
Equal Earth	Preserves relative area	Shapes, angles, distances and directions	Comparing regions, teaching world geography and suitable global data maps
Mercator	Preserves angles and shapes locally; constant-bearing courses plot as straight lines	Areas enlarge towards the poles; the poles cannot appear	Explaining navigation and the history of mapmaking
Winkel Tripel	Balances several forms of distortion	Neither equal-area nor conformal	A pleasing general world reference
Miller	Fits the world into a rectangle, including finite pole lines	Neither equal-area nor conformal; high-latitude enlargement remains	A rectangular physical overview with a simple grid
Gall–Peters	Preserves relative area in a rectangle	Tropical shapes stretch vertically; higher-latitude shapes flatten	Area comparisons and projection lessons

 

The same Natural Earth coastlines plotted with five projections. Panels are fitted separately, not displayed at a common scale. Mercator is cut off at 85° north and south because its poles lie at infinity. Cartography calculated with PROJ; source and method details appear at the end of this article.

An easy way to read the table is to start with the question you want the map to answer. If it is “How much of the Earth does this region occupy?”, equal area matters. If it is “Why did navigators value this particular grid?”, Mercator is the story. If it is “How can I show the whole world with a balanced general appearance?”, a compromise projection deserves consideration.

A good map recommendation begins with a purpose.

Why every flat world map makes a compromise

The word “accurate” carries more work than it can comfortably manage in a map discussion. We use it to mean several different things, sometimes within the same sentence.

Imagine asking a map to pass four tests.

First, does a country occupy the right proportion of the page? That is an area question.

Second, are angles and very small shapes preserved? That is the concern of a conformal projection.

Third, can you measure a distance with a ruler and trust it everywhere? That is a scale and distance question.

Fourth, does a line point in the direction you expect, or represent the route you intend? That is a direction or navigation question, and even here there are several different meanings.

No flat map of the whole Earth passes every test everywhere. A design that protects one property has to allow changes in another. This is why a map that works beautifully for a particular task can give a poor answer to a different question.

For readers who enjoy the technical background, John P. Snyder’s US Geological Survey reference, Map Projections: A Working Manual, remains a valuable starting point. The equations are more demanding than the orange peel, but the underlying difficulty is the same.

Equal area does not mean equal shape

Think of two pieces of modelling clay containing the same amount of material. One can be long and narrow; the other compact and rounded. If you flatten both to the same thickness, they can cover the same area while having different outlines.

That is a useful way to approach an equal-area map. The shape can change while the amount of mapped surface remains proportionate.

It also explains why Equal Earth and Gall–Peters can look so different without disagreeing about how large Africa is. Their areas follow the same requirement. Their shapes do not have to follow the same design.

Think of a map as a set of promises

An everyday analogy helps here. Imagine asking a photographer to take a group portrait in a crowded room. You want every person visible, everybody the same distance from the camera, no one standing behind anyone else, and the entire room included. A thoughtful photographer can make a good picture, but the requirements pull in different directions.

A mapmaker has a similarly demanding brief. The projection is a way of choosing which relationships the finished picture will keep faithfully.

That choice becomes easier to understand when it is stated plainly. An equal-area projection promises proportional areas. A conformal projection promises local angles. A compromise projection offers a considered balance. Trouble begins when a viewer assumes that one of those promises includes all the others.

Imagine buying a watch that displays the time beautifully and then being disappointed that it does not tell you the weather. Nothing is wrong with wanting both kinds of information. You simply need to know which question your instrument was made to answer.

This is also why I am wary of the phrase “the most accurate map in the world”. It sounds impressive on a label. Without a statement of what is being measured, it gives a reader very little to work with.

Ask someone to finish the sentence instead: the most accurate for comparing what, over which area, and for which purpose? Suddenly you have the beginnings of a useful conversation.

The little circles that give the game away

Cartographers have a neat way of making distortion visible: Tissot’s indicatrix. The name sounds rather more demanding than the idea.

Imagine identical, infinitesimally small circles at different points on a globe. Apply a projection and examine what happens to them. For display, the results are enlarged so we can see them clearly.

On a conformal projection such as Mercator, they remain circles but change size. On an equal-area projection, their areas stay equal even where the circles become narrow or tilted ellipses. On a compromise projection, both shape and area can change.

You can explore the method in Esri’s illustrated explanation of Tissot’s indicatrix.

I like this device because it takes our affection for familiar coastlines out of the argument. The little circles have no national loyalties and no favourite school atlas. They simply reveal what the mathematics is doing.

There is one qualification to remember: they show local behaviour. The enlarged symbols are a diagnostic illustration, not literal circular territories hundreds of kilometres across. With that understood, they offer a remarkably direct way to see a projection’s character.

A map projection is only one layer of a map

A projection supplies the mathematical framework. The cartographer then chooses the centre, the orientation, the colours, the labels, the level of detail and the information being shown.

A political map can use Equal Earth or Winkel Tripel. A physical map can use Miller or another suitable projection. A historical-looking colour palette does not prove the underlying cartography is old. Equally, a freshly printed reproduction can faithfully show boundaries from a century ago.

Our guide to political versus physical world maps explains that separate choice. Projection answers how the globe becomes a page; map content answers what we put on that page.

Equal Earth: what it gets right, and what it gives up

Equal Earth is a pseudocylindrical projection. The technical name describes a recognisable layout: lines of latitude run horizontally, the central meridian is straight, and the other meridians curve towards the edges. The outer outline is rounded rather than rectangular.

Its poles appear as lines. That is a useful reminder that the map is a constructed representation, even when the continents look comfortably familiar. The Earth's North Pole is a point; no pleasing arrangement of typography changes that.

The Equal Earth technical documentation describes the geometry and its distortion characteristics. In practical terms, the projection preserves relative area while distributing shape changes across a world view designed to be readable and visually approachable.

The principal advantage: the area relationship stays honest

Suppose you are shading two regions that each cover one million square kilometres. On Equal Earth, they occupy the same area on the page, regardless of latitude. Their outlines can differ, but one does not receive extra visual acreage simply because it lies farther north or south.

This makes the projection a strong foundation for comparisons involving the extent of land, oceans, habitats or broad environmental zones. It also makes it useful for the most basic geographical question of all: how much room does a place actually take up?

For an Australian audience, this is a welcome perspective. Australia does not need to be placed in the middle or turned upside down to have its area represented proportionately. Equal Earth provides that relationship in every centred version.

There is a distinction here that I would like to see in more headlines: Africa does not become larger on Equal Earth. Its size relative to other places is represented properly.

The correction belongs to the picture, not the planet.

The design advantage: people can live with it on a wall

Mathematical properties matter, but a wall map is also an object that people spend time looking at. A classroom needs a map that encourages questions. A home office needs a map that someone will enjoy studying long after the initial novelty has passed.

Equal Earth’s appeal is that its equal-area property arrives in a rounded, cohesive world view. It does not require the viewer to mentally reconnect interrupted slices of the globe. Nor does it use the particularly elongated tropical forms associated with Gall–Peters.

That does not make its shape distortion disappear. It makes the overall design, to my eye, an especially persuasive choice for people who want both area integrity and an inviting everyday map.

The limitations: it still changes the world’s geometry

Equal Earth is not conformal. Angles and shapes change. It does not provide one ruler scale that works everywhere, and it does not preserve all directions or make constant-bearing courses straight.

These limitations have practical consequences. Do not use the apparent angle of a connection between two cities to infer a compass bearing. Do not take a straight ruler measurement across a wall map as a reliable global distance. Do not assume a curved airline route is a detour merely because it looks curved on the page.

It is also possible for a mathematically sound world map to be difficult to read. Small countries remain small. Islands can need symbols or insets. Densely packed labels can require careful design or a larger print.

Equal Earth keeps proportions. It cannot create unlimited space for names.

The small island test

There is a revealing way to judge a finished world map: start with somewhere genuinely small.

Can you find Singapore? Can you identify the Pacific island country you are interested in? Is a tiny place named clearly, or has it become lost among labels? If there is an inset, does the map tell you that it uses a different scale?

These are design questions that an equal-area projection cannot settle by itself. A city-state does not suddenly acquire more land because its name is important to the reader. A cartographer has to make space for the information through typography, symbols, leader lines or an inset.

It is a lovely example of the relationship between mathematical integrity and human usefulness. The area should remain proportionate, while the explanation may need to be more generous.

For a teacher, the distinction offers a good question: does a tiny mark on the map mean a place is unimportant? Of course it does not. A coastline drawn to scale represents geographical extent; a locator dot identifies a position. Neither measures a place’s importance. Its people, history, economy and connections require other kinds of information.

Equal Earth is especially useful when we respect the meaning of the property it preserves. It gives us a clearer measure of geographical space, and leaves room for the rest of the story to be told properly.

The unexpected origin story: a school-map debate

Equal Earth did not emerge from a newly discovered continent or a revised measurement of the planet. One spur was the publicity surrounding Boston schools’ use of Gall–Peters maps in 2017.

Patterson, Jenny and Šavrič saw an opportunity to offer an equal-area world map with a more familiar, rounded appearance. The visual influence was Robinson, a popular compromise projection. Robinson’s look provided inspiration; its mathematics did not supply an equal-area result.

The development brought graphic judgement and mathematical work together. That combination is part of the charm of the story: someone had to make the world look right, and someone had to make the equations keep the promise.

The team’s development account is available in Esri’s article about creating Equal Earth.

Here is a particularly useful date for anyone covering the current news: NASA’s G.Projector software added Equal Earth on 24 August 2018. The NASA changelog records it explicitly. The recent attention is new; the projection has been available to mapmakers for years.

Equal Earth versus Mercator: the navigator and the area comparison

Mercator has become the convenient villain in many stories about world maps. I think it deserves a fairer hearing, even when I would choose a different projection for the wall. Being a very good answer to a sixteenth-century navigation question is an unusual offence to be charged with.

Gerardus Mercator introduced his famous projection in 1569. Its great navigational attraction is that a constant-bearing course, or rhumb line, appears straight. Its conformal geometry preserves angles and shapes locally.

Those are substantial achievements. A projection designed around useful navigational relationships is not a failed attempt at an equal-area classroom poster.

The difficulty arises when people read its country areas as though that were the property it had been designed to preserve.

I would rather understand why an old tool was useful than simply scold it for being old. A beautiful antique compass does not become foolish because a phone now offers directions. Mercator’s achievement is easier to appreciate when you put yourself in the position of someone trying to navigate with the instruments and information available at the time.

We can admire that achievement and still choose a different world map for a lesson about continents. There is room on the bookshelf, and in the conversation, for both.

Why places grow towards the poles

On a globe, the circles of latitude become smaller as you move from the equator towards either pole. Mercator represents those circles as horizontal lines across a rectangular map. Maintaining its local shape property requires corresponding vertical stretching.

The result is increasing enlargement with latitude. Northern Canada, Greenland and northern Eurasia gain a great deal of visual space. The same mathematical rule applies in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a latitude effect, not a formula that recognises particular countries.

For a spherical Mercator map whose scale is true at the equator, the local length scale is 1/cos(latitude). The local area factor is the square of that: 1/cos²(latitude).

At 60° latitude, lengths are locally doubled and areas are locally quadrupled. At 80°, the local area factor is about 33.16.

That second number often causes a raised eyebrow. It should also come with its qualification attached: it is a local area factor at a specified latitude, not a statement that every country near that latitude is enlarged by exactly that amount.

On a spherical Mercator map with true scale at the equator, local area scale is 1/cos²(latitude): 1× at the equator, 1.33× at 30°, 4× at 60° and 33.16× at 80°. Equal Earth preserves relative area. The circle areas represent these factors; they are not projected country outlines.

The formula is also a helpful defence against sloppy explanations. “Mercator makes everything in the north bigger” misses the equivalent effect in the south. “Mercator makes Greenland 33 times larger” confuses a value at one latitude with an area calculation for a whole island.

Good trivia is most useful when it arrives with the units still attached.

The mathematics is documented in PROJ’s Mercator reference, while Esri’s Mercator guide sets out its practical properties and limitations.

Why that small word “locally” matters

You may reasonably wonder how Mercator can preserve shape when Greenland looks so enormous. The word doing the work is “locally”.

Imagine a tiny circular mark on the globe, small enough that we can consider the projection’s behaviour at that location. Mercator stretches it equally in every direction. It remains circular, although its size can change.

Now move to another latitude. The amount of enlargement changes. A country extending through many latitudes therefore has different amounts of stretching applied to different parts of it.

Its small neighbourhoods can preserve their local angles while the country’s overall proportions change. That is quite different from taking a photograph of the entire country and enlarging every part by the same percentage.

This matters whenever someone says a projection “keeps the shapes correct”. Ask whether they mean local shapes or the outline of an entire continent. A modest little qualification can carry a great deal of mathematical weight.

The same care helps with scale. A map can have true scale along a particular line without having true scale everywhere. Once you begin noticing the qualifications, the small print becomes surprisingly interesting.

Why you cannot put the poles on a complete Mercator map

As latitude approaches 90°, Mercator’s vertical coordinates increase without bound. The poles do not merely become inconveniently stretched. They are infinitely far away in the projection.

A finite Mercator world map therefore has to stop short of them. This is why the Mercator panel in our comparison graphic is explicitly cropped at 85° north and south.

That is also a useful visual clue. A rectangular map showing both poles within its finite border cannot be a complete, unmodified Mercator projection. Rectangular does not automatically mean Mercator.

A straight line is not necessarily the shortest route

Mercator’s straight-line advantage concerns constant bearing. The shortest path between two points on a sphere follows a great circle, and it will generally curve on Mercator. Some special cases coincide, but the two ideas are not interchangeable.

Try the distinction as a question: do you want to keep the same compass direction, or minimise the distance across the curved Earth? You can understand why both are useful without expecting them to be the same route.

Actual journeys introduce weather, airspace, currents and other considerations. A projection comparison explains the geometry; it does not explain every operational decision made by a ship or aircraft.

If you have a globe nearby, try a simple demonstration. Put two fingers on places separated by a large ocean and imagine drawing a taut thread between them along the surface. Then find the same places on a flat map.

The shortest connection on the globe may appear surprisingly curved on the page. A route that seems to wander towards the top of the map may be doing something entirely sensible on the curved Earth.

That little exercise is worth remembering when a map accompanies a story about a long flight. The flat picture is a translation. Read the route through that translation before deciding whether the aircraft is going the long way round.

What about the maps on a phone?

Web Mercator is related to the classic projection but should not be treated as mathematically identical in every respect. In its familiar implementation, spherical equations are applied to ellipsoidal geographical coordinates, introducing a technical distinction from true ellipsoidal Mercator.

For most readers, the important practical point is simpler: the familiar appearance of a digital map does not make its world-scale area relationships suitable for comparing continents.

Equally, a useful digital street-map interface does not have to be condemned because the same framework is a poor choice for judging the relative size of Greenland and Africa. The task and the viewing scale matter.

A Mercator example to explore

Our 1931 Ernest Dudley Chase Mercator Map of the World offers a historical example of the projection. It belongs to a conversation about cartographic history and design, not a claim about today’s political boundaries.

There is another instructive example in our Pacific-centred world political map published in 1944. It demonstrates that putting the Pacific in the middle does not, by itself, make a map equal-area. It is still a Mercator map, and it is still a historical reproduction.

For more maps whose historical context is part of their appeal, explore our historical wall maps collection.

My recommendation is straightforward: enjoy Mercator for what it does and what it tells us about mapmaking. For direct world-area comparisons, choose an equal-area projection.

Equal Earth versus Winkel Tripel: equality or compromise?

Winkel Tripel is one reason the argument should never be reduced to “old maps are Mercator, new maps are Equal Earth”. Many familiar modern world maps already use a different approach.

Oswald Winkel introduced Winkel Tripel in 1921. It is a compromise projection: rather than preserving one of the major properties everywhere, it seeks a balanced result across several kinds of distortion. National Geographic has used a Winkel Tripel variant for its general world maps since 1998.

The overall appearance is rounded and recognisable. For someone choosing a general reference map, that can be a very attractive combination.

The trivia hiding in the name

“Tripel” refers to the three concerns of area, distance and direction. It does not mean the projection is a mixture of three different maps.

The formula combines two projections: Aitoff and an equidistant cylindrical projection. Three objectives; two ingredients. It is exactly the sort of fact that makes a map enthusiast unexpectedly useful at a dinner party, provided the other guests have not already changed the subject.

The construction and history are set out in Esri’s Winkel Tripel documentation. National Geographic also discusses the projection in its explanation of the Boston schools map debate.

What Winkel Tripel does well

I would happily recommend a well-designed Winkel Tripel map to someone who wants an engaging world overview. It gives the continents a balanced setting and avoids the dramatic high-latitude enlargement associated with Mercator.

For a living room, office or general reference wall, the entire finished design matters: label hierarchy, colour, ocean detail, print size and the visual relationship between neighbouring places. A strong compromise projection can serve that purpose very well.

Our National Geographic World Decorator wall map, 1852 × 1219 mm, is a product example that explicitly uses Winkel Tripel.

Where Equal Earth has the clearer advantage

A compromise is not an area guarantee. If you want to compare the amount of land occupied by different regions, Winkel Tripel does not preserve that relationship exactly.

You might prefer its overall appearance. You might particularly like the cartographic detail of a specific published map. Those are reasonable buying decisions. They are simply different considerations from whether two equally large regions occupy equally large areas on the page.

For a lesson or news graphic where proportional area is central to the point, I would favour Equal Earth. For a general world reference where a balanced overall view is the priority, I would keep Winkel Tripel firmly on the shortlist.

There is no need to pretend that one of these choices makes the other obsolete.

Why a compromise can be a sensible luxury

Think about a world map that you will look at every day for ten years. Some days you may locate a country mentioned in the news. On others, you might trace a journey, look for a mountain range or simply enjoy the overall design.

That is a broad brief. A carefully designed compromise map can answer it well, even though it cannot claim the exact area property of Equal Earth.

The important thing is to avoid accidentally borrowing that claim. You can say that a Winkel Tripel map gives a balanced general picture. You should not use it as the final arbiter of a close area comparison simply because the shapes seem plausible.

I see this as an opportunity for better advice rather than a reason to narrow the choice. Someone who loves a particular National Geographic design should understand its projection and enjoy it with that knowledge. Someone whose main interest is comparing the extent of continents should be shown an equal-area option.

Good recommendations leave people better informed about the map they take home.

Equal Earth versus Miller: the rectangular compromise

The Miller cylindrical projection, introduced by Osborn Maitland Miller in 1942, has a familiar rectangular outline. Its meridians and parallels form a straightforward grid, and the polar regions fit within the frame.

That last feature immediately separates it from Mercator.

Miller reduces the extreme vertical stretching of Mercator. The whole world becomes easier to fit on a rectangular sheet, but the result is neither equal-area nor conformal.

Four-fifths of a latitude, then five-fourths of the result

There is an elegant little mathematical trick behind the appearance. Miller uses four-fifths of the latitude in a Mercator-style vertical calculation, then multiplies the result by five-fourths.

At a geographical pole, the calculation therefore uses a reduced latitude rather than reaching Mercator’s infinite limit. The pole can be represented at a finite height.

This is a change to the projection’s mathematics, not simply a photograph of a Mercator map squashed vertically. PROJ’s Miller documentation gives the equations.

What you gain, and what you lose

Miller can be useful when a rectangular presentation and a simple-looking grid suit the design. It can provide a visually accessible world overview, including polar regions that would otherwise require cropping.

The trade-off is that the reduction in Mercator-like stretching does not produce equal areas. High latitudes remain enlarged. Nor does Miller retain Mercator’s full conformal and straight-rhumb-line properties.

This makes Miller an excellent teaching comparison. Place it beside Mercator and Equal Earth, and three separate ideas become visible: retaining a rectangle, reducing a distortion and eliminating that particular distortion are not the same achievement.

A Miller example from our range

Our World Topographic Miller Projection wall map, 841 × 594 mm, combines a Miller framework with a physical view of the planet.

The word “topographic” in the title describes its attention to the Earth’s physical surface. It does not turn a world wall map into a detailed local walking or navigation sheet.

I would consider it for someone interested in a compact rectangular physical overview. If the main purpose is comparing the surface areas of countries or continents, Equal Earth provides the stronger mathematical basis.

There is a practical reading exercise here as well. Cover the title of the map and look only at its content. Are you primarily noticing mountain belts, ocean depths and the physical texture of the Earth? Or are coloured political units and borders doing most of the work?

Then uncover the title and check the projection. You have separated two decisions that product names often present together: the subject of the map and the geometry underneath it.

That habit is useful far beyond Miller. It helps you compare products on their actual merits. You can like the terrain detail of one map, the lettering of another and the area properties of a third without assuming that all those qualities come from the projection alone.

Equal Earth versus Gall–Peters: the same area promise, different shapes

Gall–Peters deserves particular care in this comparison because it shares Equal Earth’s defining property. Both are equal-area projections.

It would be wrong to say that Equal Earth finally makes areas accurate whereas Gall–Peters does not. Their disagreement is about how to arrange the shapes while keeping area relationships intact.

Gall–Peters uses a cylindrical equal-area design with standard parallels at 45° north and south. Its grid is rectangular, with straight meridians and parallels. Tropical regions look notably elongated from north to south; higher-latitude regions become flatter.

Equal Earth’s curved meridians distribute the shape changes differently. Its rounded result is often easier for viewers who prefer a familiar-looking world outline.

Two names, and more than a century between them

James Gall presented the underlying projection in 1855. Arno Peters brought it to wide public attention in 1973. Calling it Gall–Peters acknowledges both parts of that story.

That history is a useful corrective to the idea that equal-area mapping began with one recent campaign. The mathematical family is much older than the current headlines. Equal Earth contributes a particular design, not the invention of the equal-area principle.

The chronology and standard parallels are documented in Andrea Favretto’s International Cartographic Association conference paper. For the broader projection family, see Esri’s cylindrical equal-area reference.

Why Gall–Peters can still be a valuable choice

For a classroom discussing projection, the strong visual contrast is an advantage. Students can compare two equal-area maps and see immediately that equal area does not dictate a single shape.

For a discussion of representation, it also connects the current news with an earlier and influential public debate. The map becomes both a mathematical object and a record of how people have argued about the world.

Our Gall–Peters Equal Area World Map, 1050 × 700 mm, provides a direct comparison with the Equal Earth range.

We explored the wider theme in Greenland for Sale: A Gall–Peters Perspective on Cartographic Ego and Arctic Aspirations. It is a useful companion if the relationship between map appearance and geopolitical imagination is what first drew you into the subject.

Which would I put on the wall?

For a new everyday world map where area comparison is important, I would usually begin with Equal Earth. I find its combination of proportional areas and rounded continental presentation particularly appealing.

For a teaching display specifically about projection, I would be reluctant to choose only one. Equal Earth beside Gall–Peters makes a better lesson than either map alone. The discussion moves beyond “this map looks different” to “which property has stayed the same despite the difference?”

That is the moment when people begin reading the projection rather than merely recognising the continents.

Familiarity is a powerful critic

The first reaction to Gall–Peters is often about appearance. Africa looks long. South America seems stretched. A person may decide almost immediately that something is wrong.

I understand that response. We become attached to the outlines we know, and a map is an unusually personal kind of picture. It contains our idea of where we belong.

But appearance alone cannot tell us whether an area relationship is correct. A familiar distortion can feel comfortable; an unfamiliar one can feel suspicious. Looking at two equal-area maps side by side is a gentle way to notice that bias in ourselves.

I would encourage anyone choosing between Gall–Peters and Equal Earth to take a little time with both. Ask what you want to learn from the display. If you prefer Equal Earth’s appearance, as I generally do for everyday use, that preference can sit quite happily alongside an appreciation of Gall–Peters’ educational value.

Cartography becomes much more enjoyable once liking a map and understanding a map are allowed to be part of the same conversation.

Remember the blue bits: Equal Earth and the oceans

Most conversations about Equal Earth head straight for the land. We look for Australia, check Greenland, admire the space occupied by Africa and begin comparing countries. I would suggest spending a minute with the blue parts as well.

The equal-area promise applies to the sea. A patch of ocean covering the same surface area as a patch of land receives the same amount of mapped space. The equations do not distinguish a rainforest from a fishing ground.

That is useful when a story concerns the geographical extent of a marine habitat, a protected area or a region of unusually warm water. The projection helps keep the area comparison consistent while the data and legend explain what is being measured.

Imagine outlining two ocean regions of equal area, one near the equator and another at a high latitude. On Equal Earth, neither gains extra mapped space because of where it sits. Their outlines may change, but their areas remain in proportion.

It also encourages us to look beyond the landmass of an island. A tiny mark on a world map can belong to a place whose relationships extend across a great expanse of sea. The island remains small; the surrounding geography still deserves our attention.

For me, that is one pleasure of a Pacific-centred world map. There is room to pause over the water and ask what connects the places around it. The ocean becomes part of the subject rather than the blue space left over after the countries have been coloured in.

Three decisions that are often confused: projection, centre and orientation

A projection determines the mathematical transformation. Centring decides which longitude sits in the middle of the display. Orientation decides which way is up on the page.

They are related design choices, but they are not interchangeable.

Move the Pacific to the centre of an Equal Earth map and the projection remains equal-area. Turn that map south-up and the areas remain equal. Move the Pacific to the middle of a Mercator map and Mercator’s area distortion remains.

This is particularly useful for Australian readers because “Australia-centred” and “accurate size” sometimes get rolled into the same claim. One concerns prominence and continuity across the page. The other concerns geometry.

There is no single geographical address for the middle of a world map. A globe will happily turn to whatever part of the world interests you. A flat sheet has to make a selection and leave you with it until you choose another view.

For someone reading in Perth, a Pacific-centred map can feel wonderfully immediate. For someone studying the Atlantic connections between Africa and the Americas, a different arrangement may make the discussion easier. Both responses make sense.

I would choose the centre by looking at the relationships that matter to the reader. A centre is an invitation to begin looking somewhere. It should make the subject easier to understand.

Four Equal Earth views using the same scale and coastline data: central meridians of 0°, 150°E and 90°W, plus a 150°E view rotated south-up. The centre and orientation change the presentation while relative areas remain equal. These calculated diagrams explain the geometry; they are not reproductions of the printed products.

Africa-centred Equal Earth

Our Africa-centred Equal Earth wall map is a strong starting point for readers who want a familiar world arrangement with proportional areas.

It makes particular sense beside the current news about Africa’s representation. It also offers a straightforward visual bridge for someone moving from a conventional Atlantic-facing world view to equal-area mapping.

I would choose it for an overview in which Africa, Europe and their relationships with the surrounding regions deserve a central position.

Pacific-centred Equal Earth

Our Pacific-centred Equal Earth wall map brings Australia and the Pacific into a more continuous field of view.

For an Australian classroom, office or home, this can make conversations about our regional relationships feel more immediate. The Pacific becomes an expanse to study rather than an ocean pushed to opposite sides of the frame.

This is a change in the story the layout makes convenient to tell. It does not make Australia larger than it is on the Africa-centred version.

Americas-centred Equal Earth

Our Americas-centred Equal Earth wall map gives North and South America a central place.

It suits a discussion focused on the Americas or on relationships across their two ocean-facing sides. Like any centring choice, it puts the map’s seam elsewhere. A continuous globe always needs some form of cut when it is opened into a single flat world view.

The useful buying question is which relationships you want readers to see together most readily.

Upside-down Equal Earth

Our Equal Earth Upside Down wall map is a particularly effective conversation starter.

North-up is a convention, not a law of the universe. Turn a world map south-up and the continents may suddenly seem unfamiliar even though their geographical relationships remain intact.

I like this version for rooms where a map should invite questions. Why does “up” feel important? Why does a different orientation make a familiar place look new? What other assumptions have we absorbed from repeated exposure to the same image?

The reward is not only an Australian sense of humour. It is the discovery that presentation can feel natural long before we have thought about how it was chosen.

What Equal Earth means for Australia and schools

For Australian schools, Equal Earth offers an excellent starting point for teaching the difference between recognising a map and interpreting one.

Begin with an ordinary question: which of these places is larger? Let students make a prediction before checking an equal-area map. The surprise becomes a reason to investigate the projection, rather than a fact to memorise for a worksheet.

A second lesson can use centre and orientation. Ask students to compare Africa-centred, Pacific-centred and south-up versions. Which ocean feels easiest to study? Which places seem to occupy the middle of the story? Then ask whether any country’s relative area has changed.

A third lesson can pair Equal Earth with Gall–Peters. Students can identify the common property and the different shapes. This is a particularly effective way of separating what a map feels like from what it mathematically preserves.

I would also keep a globe in the conversation. It is a useful physical reference for understanding why a route that crosses the edge of a flat map is continuous on the Earth, or why a country has not physically moved when the map is recentered. Our globes collection offers that companion perspective.

The most valuable outcome is a habit: before interpreting a visual, ask how it was made.

A lesson you can run with two maps and a globe

If I were introducing this subject to a class, I would begin with a guess. No formulas, no announcement about which map was supposedly best, and no need to make anyone feel foolish.

Put Australia and Greenland on the board as names. Ask which has the larger area and by roughly how much. Invite everyone to make a private prediction before anyone speaks. Adults are welcome to participate, provided they resist the urge to consult a phone under the desk.

Then show an equal-area map and discuss the real relationship. The point of the exercise is the surprise. Where did the original impression come from? A classroom wall? An atlas? A familiar digital map? Perhaps the student had never considered the question at all.

First, separate recognition from measurement. Ask the class to find five places they know. Then ask which of those places occupy more surface area. Finding a familiar outline and judging its size are different activities, even though we often do them together without noticing.

Next, change one thing at a time. Compare Equal Earth with Gall–Peters, keeping the centre and overall orientation as similar as practicable. The outlines change; the relative areas remain equal. Avoid enlarging one individual country cut-out independently, because that would introduce a separate scale change into the exercise.

For direct comparisons between cut-outs from different prints, match their area scales first. Comparing country-area ratios within each map does not require identical print sizes.

Ask students to describe the difference before explaining the terminology. “This one looks longer” is a perfectly useful observation. It gives you a way into the distinction between shape and area without starting with a technical definition.

Then change the centre. Put the Pacific in the middle of an Equal Earth map and ask everyone to find Australia again. Which neighbouring regions are easier to see together? Where has the edge of the drawing moved? Follow a feature across that edge, then find it on the globe.

This is a good moment to point out that the paper ends even though the world carries on. The border of the printed picture is not an enormous geographical fence.

Finally, turn the world south-up. Ask students to describe their first reaction. Does the map feel strange? Is it harder to find places? Has any geographical relationship actually reversed, or have they simply changed position on the page?

The discussion can be lively precisely because the students are examining their own expectations. They do not have to take an adult’s word for the fact that orientation affects familiarity. They can feel it happening.

I would finish by asking each person to write a caption for the map they would choose for a particular task. Perhaps the task is comparing continents, explaining a historical voyage or discussing Australia’s Pacific neighbours.

The caption should say what the chosen map helps us understand and name one limitation. That small requirement turns a preference into a reasoned judgement.

There is no need for every student to choose the same map. A thoughtful explanation is more valuable than a classroom full of identical answers. If someone can explain why an equal-area view suits one question and a different projection suits another, the lesson has done its work.

For practical buying advice, see The Best Equal Earth Maps for Schools and our broader guide to classroom world and Australia wall maps. The educational products collection provides further teaching options, while our Australia Wall Maps collection can help connect the world view with a closer look at home.

What journalists should check before calling a world map “accurate”

A projection name is a useful start. It is not a complete fact-check.

For a news organisation, the key is to match the visual claim with the property being preserved. If the story is about relative land area, Equal Earth offers an important advantage. If it is about political recognition, migration totals or shipping routes, additional decisions require scrutiny.

The International Cartographic Association’s guidance on world map projections is a valuable expert reference on choosing a projection for its purpose and on the limits of claims about one universally correct map.

Separate the projection from the data

An equal-area base does not verify the numbers placed on it. A map can preserve country areas and still show an outdated population estimate, an inappropriate category break or an ambiguous legend.

Imagine two maps of the same phenomenon. One colours countries by total emissions; the other colours them by emissions per person. They answer different questions. Changing the projection cannot turn the first question into the second.

Similarly, a large country will occupy a lot of space even if the value being mapped is modest. A tiny country may contain a major financial centre or a very large per-person figure while occupying almost no room on a world map. Symbols, insets, charts or a different visual form may be needed.

Equal area is about geographical surface area. It does not allocate space according to population, economic output, biodiversity or newsworthiness.

Separate the projection from the borders

The equations for Equal Earth do not decide the ownership of disputed territory. Boundary lines, place names and annotations are editorial and data choices added to the projection.

A journalist should therefore check the source and date of a political map independently of its mathematical framework. The same applies to inset maps, disputed-boundary styles and the naming conventions used by a publisher.

A map can get the area relationship right while still needing a careful caption about what its boundaries represent.

Separate the historical example from the present-day reference

Historical maps are wonderfully informative when their dates remain visible. They can explain how a projection was used, how design styles changed or how a particular era described the world.

They should not quietly become present-day political reference maps in an accompanying illustration. If you reproduce a 1931 or 1944 design, tell readers that it is historical. Its date is part of the evidence.

Make the comparison fair

When publishing two projections side by side, explain whether the panels share a scale or have been fitted independently into matching boxes. A world silhouette can be made to look larger simply by enlarging the entire image.

For country-area comparisons within an equal-area map, the shared projection provides the relevant relationship. For a visual comparison between two different projections, layout decisions introduce another variable.

Our five-projection graphic explicitly notes that its panels are fitted separately. It is intended to show shape and grid differences, not to invite a ruler comparison between panels.

For further discussion of maps in reporting and analysis, read Maps: An Essential Tool for Geopolitical Analysis.

A wording guide for editors

These distinctions can make the difference between a striking headline and a misleading one.

If the draft says…	A more precise formulation is…
“Equal Earth is completely accurate.”	“Equal Earth preserves relative areas while changing shapes, distances and directions.”
“Africa is now bigger.”	“Equal Earth shows Africa’s area in the correct proportion to other regions.”
“The UN has banned Mercator.”	“The General Assembly has backed the promotion of Equal Earth; the initiative does not ban Mercator.”
“This shop sells UN-approved maps.”	“The shop sells maps using the Equal Earth projection discussed in the UN initiative.”
“Mercator was designed to make Europe important.”	“Mercator’s navigational geometry enlarges high-latitude regions; its later representational effects are a separate question.”
“Gall–Peters is less accurate because it looks stretched.”	“Gall–Peters preserves area but distributes shape distortion differently from Equal Earth.”
“The Pacific-centred version has more accurate country sizes.”	“The Pacific-centred version changes the layout; all four Equal Earth versions preserve relative area.”
“The map was invented in 2026.”	“Equal Earth was introduced in 2018 and received renewed attention in 2026.”

I would apply one additional test to any superlative: accurate in what respect? That short question improves an extraordinary number of map captions.

Four pieces of cartographic trivia worth sharing

1. Greenland is a remarkable island, but it is no Australia

Australia is roughly three and a half times Greenland’s area. Africa is roughly fourteen times Greenland’s area. National Geographic uses these comparisons in its educational explanation of projection distortion.

These are approximate real-world area ratios, not measurements of how much a particular Mercator print enlarges Greenland. They are also much more memorable than a general warning that maps contain distortion. Ask someone to picture the comparison before showing them an equal-area map.

2. A projection need not be a light show

The word “projection” can suggest a lamp inside a transparent globe casting a shadow onto paper. That can help illustrate some geometrical ideas, but it is not a literal explanation of every projection.

Equal Earth is defined by mathematical relationships between geographical coordinates and positions on a plane. So are the other projections discussed here. A calculator or computer can apply those relationships without anyone placing a light bulb inside the planet.

That is also why a new projection can be designed without discovering new geographical data. The innovation can be in the transformation itself.

3. A pole can become a line

Equal Earth, Gall–Peters and Miller all represent the poles as lines in their normal world-map form. Mercator sends them to infinity. These treatments reveal the transformation especially clearly because a single point on the globe has become something very different on the page.

4. A very large wall map is still a “small-scale” map

In cartography, large scale generally means a small geographical area shown in greater detail. A street plan is large-scale compared with a world map, even if the world map covers most of a wall.

If someone asks for a “large-scale world map”, it is worth checking whether they mean a physically large print. A few seconds spent clarifying that phrase can save a very confusing conversation.

Which world map would I choose?

My first recommendation is to decide what you want the map to do when nobody is actively explaining it. Will it quietly teach world geography? Help you compare continents? Provide a beautiful general reference? Start conversations about how we see the world?

For an Australian home, office or classroom wanting proportional areas and a regional emphasis, I would begin with the Pacific-centred Equal Earth map.

For a familiar world arrangement and a direct connection to the debate about Africa’s representation, I would choose the Africa-centred version.

For a focus on North and South America, the Americas-centred version puts the relevant geography together. For a room where the map should immediately prompt a question, the upside-down Equal Earth map is hard to overlook.

If the appeal is National Geographic’s general reference cartography and decorative presentation, the Winkel Tripel World Decorator map remains a strong alternative.

If you want a physical overview in a rectangular format, consider the Miller world map. If you are teaching the history and logic of equal-area mapping, add Gall–Peters to the comparison.

Then consider the object itself. A map read from a desk and a map read across a classroom make different demands on print size. A finish chosen for a busy teaching environment may differ from one selected for a framed home display. Our guides to wall map size and paper, laminated and canvas map finishes explain those practical decisions.

The map is not the same thing as its sheet of paper

Equal Earth’s rounded outline usually sits inside a rectangular sheet. The corners outside that outline are not missing ocean. They are outside the mapped world.

A rectangular projection fills its frame differently. Titles, legends, borders and margins introduce further differences between finished prints. Measuring how much blue ink appears on two sheets of equal width will tell you very little unless you first account for scale and layout.

I would begin by looking inside each map. How does Australia compare with Greenland within that view? How do the same regions relate in the other view? Those are useful geographical questions. The amount of wall space occupied by the title is a publishing decision.

This distinction also helps when choosing a map for a room. The finished dimensions tell you whether the print will fit. The size of the mapped area and the lettering tell you how comfortably it will read. Both deserve a look before the tape measure goes away.

Browse the full world maps collection with the projection in mind, then choose the map whose content and presentation suit the room.

Frequently asked questions about Equal Earth

Is Equal Earth more accurate than Mercator?

It is more accurate for relative area. Mercator preserves angles and shapes locally and has a useful straight-rhumb-line property. Equal Earth does not retain those properties. The better choice depends on what the map is meant to communicate.

Does Equal Earth show countries at their true size?

It shows their areas in the correct proportion to one another, subject to the accuracy and generalisation of the source boundaries. “True size” should not be taken to mean that every length, angle and shape is preserved.

Is Equal Earth the same as Gall–Peters?

No. Both are equal-area, but they use different geometries. Gall–Peters is rectangular with straight meridians. Equal Earth has curved outer meridians and a rounded outline. The shape changes are distributed differently.

Is Winkel Tripel an equal-area projection?

No. It is a compromise projection designed to balance distortion. It is useful for general world reference, but it does not guarantee correct relative areas.

Is Miller just another name for Mercator?

No. Miller modifies the vertical calculation, reduces polar stretching and brings the poles into a finite frame. It is neither conformal nor equal-area.

Can I measure distances on an Equal Earth wall map?

Not with one uniform ruler scale that is accurate everywhere. For an actual distance calculation, use a suitable geodesic tool or a map designed for the region and measurement required.

Does the Pacific-centred Equal Earth map change country sizes?

It preserves the same relative areas as the other Equal Earth views. Recentring changes where places appear and where the map is cut. It also changes the distribution of shape distortion, without changing the equal-area property.

Is a south-up map wrong?

No. South-up is a different orientation. North and south retain their geographical meanings even when their positions on the page are reversed.

Has the UN endorsed Mapworld’s printed maps?

The UN initiative concerns the projection and its use, not a retailer’s individual products. Our maps use Equal Earth, but that is different from claiming UN approval of a particular print, label or boundary depiction.

Should every world map now use Equal Earth?

No single projection serves every purpose. Equal Earth is an excellent option where proportional area matters. Other projections remain useful for navigation, particular regional views, general reference, history and teaching comparisons.

A better map begins with a better question

I like Equal Earth because it gives us a world map that is inviting to look at and clear about one important promise: area means area wherever you are on the planet. It is a lovely combination of mathematical discipline and the simple pleasure of looking at the world.

That is an excellent reason to put it on a wall. It is also an excellent reason to discuss it in the news.

What I hope survives the news cycle is the curiosity. Why is the Pacific split here? Why does Greenland seem so large? What happens if we turn the page around? Which part of the picture belongs to the Earth, and which part belongs to the choices made by the mapmaker?

These are good questions to ask with a child, a colleague or someone who has stopped for a moment in front of the map on your wall. You do not need to deliver a lecture. Start with a place you both know and see where the conversation goes.

You may end up talking about a journey, an ocean, a country in the news or the strange business of turning a globe into a sheet of paper. You may even find yourself defending a sixteenth-century cartographer who has had a rather difficult week in the headlines.

That seems a splendid return from something hanging quietly on a wall.

Equal Earth gives us a clearer view of the world’s proportions. Understanding it gives us something else as well: the confidence to look at any map, enjoy it, and ask a better question.

Sources, verification and figure methods

Prepared on 25 September 2026. Historical dates and projection properties are linked to research papers, technical documentation and institutional sources. Product examples are linked to their Mapworld listings. The recommendations and practical examples are our editorial judgement.

The following references provide routes into the underlying evidence:

1. Šavrič, B., Patterson, T. and Jenny, B. The Equal Earth map projection. Introduced online in 2018; published in the 2019 volume of the International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 33(3), 454–465. Institutional record.

2. PROJ. Equal Earth, Mercator, Winkel Tripel, Miller cylindrical and cylindrical equal-area technical references.

3. Esri. Equal Earth, Mercator, Winkel Tripel and cylindrical equal-area projection documentation.

4. Esri ArcUser. The Equal Earth development story.

5. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. G.Projector version 2 changelog, including the addition of Equal Earth on 24 August 2018.

6. National Geographic Education. A Whole New World in Boston Public Schools, including discussion of projection choices and Winkel Tripel.

7. Favretto, A. Arno Peters and “his” equal area projection: a practical approach in a GIS environment. Abstracts of the International Cartographic Association, 3, 75, 2021. Cited for the Gall–Peters history and geometry.

8. Snyder, J. P. Map Projections: A Working Manual. US Geological Survey Professional Paper 1395, 1987.

9. International Cartographic Association. World map projections factsheet, March 2026.

10. United Nations, Office of the Special Adviser on Africa. Victory for Africa as UN Votes on Resolution to “Correct the Map”, republishing UN News on the September 2026 initiative.

11. Natural Earth. Public-domain data terms and 1:110m land geometry used in the figures.

12. Buckley, A., Esri. Tissot’s indicatrix helps illustrate map projection distortion, explaining local distortion circles and ellipses.

Figures 2–4 were calculated from Natural Earth land geometry using PROJ 9.8.1 through pyproj, with spherical projection settings. Gall–Peters uses cylindrical equal-area with standard parallels at ±45°. Winkel Tripel uses a standard parallel of arccos(2/π), approximately 50.460°. Geographic polygons were clipped at the appropriate map seam before projection.

The five-projection figure fits each panel independently and crops Mercator at ±85°. The centre-and-orientation figure uses a common scale. The area-distortion figure uses the spherical Mercator formula 1/cos²(latitude), normalised to true scale at the equator; circle radii are proportional to the square root of the displayed area factor. These are local scale calculations, not measurements of the enlargement of entire countries. Equal Earth’s local area factor was numerically checked against the same spherical reference.

The hero image is an AI-assisted editorial illustration. The other three images are mathematically plotted explanatory graphics. They show coastline geometry rather than political boundary claims.

Written by Christopher O’Keeffe
Managing Director of Mapworld and specialist in maps, navigation and cartographic products. 

AI transparency: This article was prepared under the authorship and editorial control of Christopher O’Keeffe using AI-assisted research, drafting or production tools. Its substantive content was reviewed and approved by the author. Mapworld retains editorial responsibility. Read our Content Policy.

Share:

---

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.

Name *

Email *

Comment *

---

Also in Map Guides, Travel Tips & Reviews