What different world maps get right - and what they get wrong

The United Nations has recommended replacing the standard world map with a more accurate representation of the continents' true sizes. The Mercator projection, which is frequently used in maps, distorts the size of continents, making Africa appear similar in size to Greenland when it is actually 14 times larger. This issue is the focus of the "Correct the Map" resolution adopted by the General Assembly, which has embraced a new map called the Equal Earth projection.

While the Equal Earth projection presents landmasses more accurately, it also has drawbacks. One of its main drawbacks is that it sacrifices the straight lines of the Mercator projection, which was originally designed to help sailors navigate using a compass. Additionally, the Equal Earth map cannot be used for measuring the true distance between locations.

The Peters world map, developed by Arno Peters in the early 1970s, attempts to address the size distortion issue. It based its projection on one described by James Gall in 1855, which sacrifices the accuracy of shape in favor of scale accuracy. This allows for a more accurate sense of comparative landmass sizes while preserving straight lines of longitude and latitude.

However, the Peters map severely distorts the shapes of continents, making them all appear slightly off. Russia, for example, appears smaller than it actually is. There are other types of world maps, such as the Azimuthal equidistant projection, which places regions at proportionally correct distances from a chosen center point, and the south-up orientation, which rotates the traditional north-up map 180 degrees to place the southern regions on top.