Tag Archives: Mercator

Inventio Fortunata (unrelated to Harry Potter)

Posted on January 21, 2026 by Brian D. Butler

With constant coverage of Greenland in recent news cycles, the infamous Mercator projection has come under fire anew for distorting the real shape of the world’s continents — objects closer to the poles appear larger than they should. That results in … Continue reading →

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Extreme Cartography

Posted on May 22, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Mercator Extreme is a fun tool that you can use to choose any point on Earth as the pole and then view the resulting ultra-distorted Mercator map.

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The Shape of Our World

Posted on July 17, 2019 by Brian D. Butler

The fascinating infographic below explores how the view of our planet has evolved over the last 1,800 years. When most of us picture a world map, we likely still envision some variation of the 16th century Mercator projection even though … Continue reading →

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