It is often argued that the distortions of the Mercator projection affect the public's cognitive map, giving them an incorrect understanding of the relative sizes of countries and continents around the world. To investigate this claim, the Department of Geography at Ghent University conducted a study to collect data on people's perceptions of the world and test their understanding of the relative sizes of countries and continents.
The Mercator projection greatly exaggerates the size of landmasses as they approach the poles. For instance, on a map using the Mercator projection, Greenland appears nearly the size of Africa, even though Africa is 14 times larger in reality. This has led to concerns that the widespread use of the Mercator projection may contribute to widespread misconceptions about the Earth's geography.
To explore this further, Ghent University developed an online test titled How accurate is your mental map? The test was designed to assess how well participants could estimate the sizes of countries, regions, and continents, and explored their familiarity with different map projections.
You can use this test yourself to discover the accuracy of your own mental map of the world. During the test you are asked to estimate the size of 12 different countries or continents in comparison to other regions of the world. In each of the 12 rounds you are presented with a map of two countries or continents and simply have to use the '-' and '+' buttons to change the size of the two countries or continents with reference to each other.
At the end of the test you can view your results, including a score for each of the 12 comparisons. The results also show how closely your estimates matched the actual sizes of the compared countries or continents.
Interestingly, in reference to the famous West Wing clip that criticized the Mercator projection, the study concluded that participants, on average, "estimated the continents a little more accurately when projected in the Mercator projection" than when using the Gall–Peters projection. However, the study also found that participants familiar with the Robinson projection estimated sizes more accurately than those familiar with the Mercator projection. This finding supports the idea that incorporating better map projections, such as the Robinson projection, in educational settings can improve spatial awareness and understanding of global geography.
For those interested in exploring the study's findings further, the full conclusions are available in the published paper, The Influence of Map Projections on People’s Global-Scale Cognitive Map: A Worldwide Study.
Via: OSMWeekly
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