World Map Distortion: True Distance and Size on a Flat Map. Why it's happening? скачать в хорошем качестве

World Map Distortion: True Distance and Size on a Flat Map. Why it's happening?

#geography #map #distance This is an ordinary map of the world based on the Mercator projection. In 99% of cases, we have been looking at it since school and perceive the distance in direct proportion to what it is on the map. Now I will show you how much you are wrong in perceiving the distance and why you should buy a globe. Here is the distance between Norway and India. It is quite far, almost 5000 km. But what if I told you that the distance from India to Australia is even greater. It's 400 kilometers. Why is this happening? Let's find out. The distance between Luanda and Dar es Salaam is approximately 3000 kilometers. Add 2 more lines to form an equilateral triangle. Now let's look at the same triangle against the background of Europe. As you can see, the lines are already slightly curved. These are the trajectories of the shortest routes between these cities. The European triangle is several times larger than the African triangle, although in fact they are almost identical. The reason is the projection of the spherical surface of the Earth onto a flat map. A classic map based on the Mercator projection retains the proportions at the equator, but the closer you are to the poles, the greater the distance distortion. For a true projection of the poles, you need to use this approach. Here is the shortest way from Murmansk to Magadan in a straight line. It would seem that no other country in the world has such dimensions. But in fact, the distance from the eastern point of Indonesia to the western point is 200 kilometers longer. This is approximately the same distance between Quito and Recife. It was a surprise to me that Lisbon is further away from Florida than Norway is from Japan. It would seem that Norway and Japan are opposite sides of the world, but in fact it is not at all. It gets even more interesting. Here we go. If you were asked to draw the shortest line connecting mainland Europe and America, you would probably draw a line from about Spain to the east coast of Canada. Well, 80% of the audience would do that, and the other 20% would draw the line like this. But I'm sure no one would draw a line between Tonsvik, Norway, and northern Nunavut. This line is 40 kilometers shorter than the previous two. Let's look at Africa. The capital of Senegal, Dakar, is closer to Bogota, Quito, and even Buenos Aires than to the opposite east coast of Africa. Only one capital among all South American countries is further away. This is Santiago. Moreover, Dakar is also closer to Ottawa and Washington, D.C., and even to all European capitals than to the opposite east coast of Africa. From this we can understand how gigantic Africa really is. And Dakar is supposed to be a hub for international air travel. But it is not, and I will show you the real hub a little later. First, let's look at the shortest distance between Tokyo and Chicago. It would seem that this line should go straight through somewhere between Hawaii and Alaska. But due to the elliptical shape of our planet, this line will be longer by about 15%. Here are some more routes between Asian and American cities. Did you notice anything interesting? Yes, they all intersect or pass near the city of Anchorage in Alaska. Anchorage can be called a real hub for air travel. Trading companies use the Anchorage airport to refuel their planes. This increases the amount of cargo transported per flight. Thank you for your attention and use the globe more often.