The Flat Earth Map

In 1892 Alexander Gleason, author of Is the Bible from Heaven? Is the Earth a Globe?, published his New Standard Map of the World. The map includes the subheading ‘As it is,’ reflecting Gleason’s belief that the map showed a world that was flat - and not round.

The map actually uses an azimuthal equidistant projection (which the map's subheading indicates was borrowed from an English cartographer). An azimuthal equidistant projection shows the Earth on a flat surface so that:

• Distances from a single central point are accurate.
• Directions (azimuths) from that central point are also accurate.

You can explore an interactive version of Gleason's New Standard Map of the World on the website of the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library. The original map had two physical “hands”. The library's copy of the map only has one of the two broken rulers remaining. These rulers functioned as movable measuring arms. These were intended to be rotated from the map’s center at the North Pole to measure distance and direction to any location on the map. 

Because the map uses an azimuthal equidistant projection, distances and bearings measured outward from the center are supposedly accurate, allowing the map to be used as a practical navigational and educational tool. However, distortion increases farther from the center, and distances between places away from the North Pole are not shown correctly. This means the hands were useful for measuring routes from the pole, but not for reliably comparing distances between distant locations elsewhere on the map.

Khaled Mimoune has released a modern interactive interpretation of Gleason's New Standard Map. Gleason’s original map included two smaller inset maps to illustrate the distribution of daylight and darkness on Earth at the solstices. Khaled’s map expands on this idea with an adjustable daylight overlay that shows the distribution of sunlight across the map and can be dynamically changed by both time of day and day of the year, allowing users to explore how seasonal and daily cycles affect illumination worldwide.

Despite its striking appearance, Gleason's New Standard Map is (like all maps) just a flat projection of the Earth’s surface - the planet itself of cause remains a globe.