Editing Mercator projection (section)

== Distortion of sizes ==
[[File:Worlds animate.gif|thumb|right|Proportions of distorted and real size. Note that the map is multiply interrupted along political lines.]]
[[File:Comparison of various cylindrical panoramic formats 165 degrees vertical field of view and 360 degrees horizontal field of view.jpg|thumb|50px| 360° cylindrical projections: Equirectangular, Miller, Mercator, and true cylindrical.]]

As with all [[map projection]]s, the shapes or sizes are distortions of the true layout of Earth's surface. The Mercator projection exaggerates areas far from the [[equator]]; the closer to Earth's poles, the greater the distortion.

===Examples of size distortion===
* [[Greenland]] appears the same size as [[Africa]], when in reality Africa's area is 14 times as large.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-27 |title=This animated map shows the true size of each country |url=https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/data-visualisation-animated-map-mercater-projection-true-size-countries |access-date=2023-06-20 |website=Nature Index |language=en}}</ref> 
** Greenland's real area is comparable to the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]'s alone. 
** Africa appears to be roughly the same size as [[South America]], when in reality Africa is over one and a half times as large.
* [[Alaska]] appears to be the same size as [[Australia]], although Australia is actually 4.5 times as large.
** Alaska also takes as much area on the map as [[Brazil]], whereas Brazil's area is nearly 5 times that of Alaska.
* [[Madagascar]] and [[Great Britain]] look about the same size, while Madagascar is actually more than twice as large as Great Britain.

===Criticism===
Because of great land area distortions, critics like George Kellaway and Irving Fisher consider the projection unsuitable for general world maps. It has been conjectured to have influenced people's views of the world: because it shows countries near the Equator as too small when compared to those of Europe and North America, it has been supposed to cause people to consider those countries as less important.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa030201a.htm |title= Mercator Projection vs. Peters Projection, part 1 |publisher= Matt T. Rosenberg, about.com}}</ref> Mercator himself used the equal-area [[sinusoidal projection]] to show relative areas. However, despite such criticisms, the Mercator projection was, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, perhaps the most common projection used in world maps.<ref name="Kellaway">
  Kellaway, G.P. (1946). ''Map Projections'' p. 37–38. London: Methuen & Co. LTD. (According to this source, it had been claimed that the Mercator projection was used for "imperialistic motives")
</ref><ref name="Abelson">
  Abelson, C.E. (1954). ''Common Map Projections'' s. 4. Sevenoaks: W.H. Smith & Sons.
</ref><ref name="Chamberlin">
  Chamberlin, Wellman (1947). ''The Round Earth on Flat Paper'' s. 99. Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society.
</ref>

[[Atlas (geography)|Atlas]]es largely stopped using the Mercator projection for world maps or for areas distant from the equator in the 1940s, preferring other [[map projection#Cylindrical|cylindrical projection]]s, or forms of [[equal-area projection]]. The Mercator projection is, however, still commonly used for areas near the equator where distortion is minimal. It is also frequently found in maps of time zones.{{sfn|Monmonier|2004|p=124–128}}

[[Arno Peters]] stirred controversy beginning in 1972 when he proposed what is now usually called the [[Gall–Peters projection]] to remedy the problems of the Mercator, claiming it to be his own original work without referencing prior work by cartographers such as Gall's work from 1855. The projection he promoted is a specific parameterization of the [[cylindrical equal-area projection]]. In response, a 1989 resolution by seven North American geographical groups disparaged using cylindrical projections for general-purpose world maps, which would include both the Mercator and the Gall–Peters.<ref>American Cartographer. 1989. 16(3): 222–223.</ref>