I‘m not an expert in projections. I only wanted to add that I get why a map that represents areas more realistically might be preferable to a map that represents cardinal directions better, especially for organizations like the UN. What (apart from warped cardinal directions) does it sacrifice in comparison to Mercator?
And I know that there are projections that better represent true areas. But I guess there‘s also a benefit in having the map itself in a more „digestible“ format (e.g., square or oval-shaped) and not to break with all familiarities (that is, roughly, Americas left, Europe/Africa center, Asia and Oceania right, at least in the „western world“)? Equal Earth sticks to those principles but represents area better than Mercator, so I guess it’s a compromise?
Here's Trissot's Indicatrix of ee and Mercator and cahill keyes
Mercator was prized for so long because it keeps the rhumb lines straight. Which is mainly for circumnavigation, as you say.
But it also maintains the shape of the countries. This seems so much more important to me than their landmass volume. Especially considering landmass volume isn't a useful measure of anything.
The brass tacks of this all is that if you wanted to best reprisent volume of land, not distort the shapes to an unrecognisable degree and represent the earth as close to accurately as you can on a 2D plane, you would choose a projection like cahill keyes.
Ee does little well. It distorts the view of the landmasses. Stretching out everything close to the equator and squashing everything north or south of it.
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u/Eldritch_Horns 17h ago
It doesn't represent the land masses accurately. You can literally see the projection distorting the further north you go.
It does it better than Mercator, but it doesn't do it well. And it sacrifices so much more.
It's a bad projection and this is pointless virtue signalling.
If you wanted an accurate projection, you'd use something like cahill keyes.
That's about as balanced a projection is going to get.