The True Size of Africa An Erroneous Map Misled Us For 500 Years

At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers six percent of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area.[

reply to post by Supacabana




Population: 528.7 million (2008)


Area: 9.54 million sq miles (24.71 million km²)


Countries: United States of America, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, More

Both areas are listed on wikipedia.

Main problem here is that in the video in the original post it says that map was made inaccurate so as to promote Europe as superior to the rest of the world. We learned about the accuracy of multiple map projections in, i think, middle school geography. The mercator projection was explained to be the one best used for navigation. Throughout all of my K-12 school years, the most common projection was a pseudocylindrical one, which is always more accurate and everybody knew it.

That video (and those so called "teachers") want us to just think the whole reason that of the hundred, if not, thousands of map projections ever made, that an inaccurate one is used because of white supremacy. It's like in Disney's Pocahontas, when the tribal chief says "these white men are dangerous." Except that is K-12 history in a nutshell. In the end it all comes down to "muh colonialism."

Originally posted by neformore
reply to post by Hadrian

 

The world may have been a very different place had equal projection been taught all these years.

Its certainly a more humbling view of the world when we see things on an equal footing and maybe geopolitical sensibilites and world politics would be shaped differently.

Well, maybe. There's a lot of assumption in that. I don't necessarily disagree, but without any evidence, I would caution myself to assume that the motivation behind a significant portion of the field of cartography was to create and preserve western hegemony.

While that may or may not have been an unintended consequence (or perhaps a small contributor to a larger set of influencing factors), I think it's important to recognize that there is an intent behind these distorted views that rely more on trying to display the impossible transition from the spherical to the flat or mapmakers understandably showing a world that radiated out in all directions from a central point that represented the world they new or seemed to be reasonable.

I specifically remember my fourth grade teacher explaining, for example, Mercator projections and why they exist ... and why Greenland appeared not only so freaking big, but monstrously big compared to other comparable land masses. I also remember the world map posted on the classroom wall that had two Indias (and other countries) on it (one on each side) in order to better show the relationship between different areas of the world when attempting to display them on a flat piece of paper that ends at a certain point, unlike the globe.

The evidence, to me, seems to point more to practicality than a conspiratorial notion to effect geopolitics.

a reply to: Phage

Mathematically you can calculate a circle as a line. And globes as flat wit no problem

a reply to: Euphony

I read somewhere that the earth is upside down compared to other planets in our solar system

a reply to: predator0187

Good find.

Learn something new everyday. The new maps do accurately account for the curvature of the earth but do not re-adjust for a FLAT paper map.

a reply to: predator0187
Well in general the size and borders of a country and even continent just depends on who exactly is making the map, and what his inclinations are, or in most cases who is paying him or her, accuracy is akin to relativity. Basically while we got a world map, it chances depending on which countries or which version your using.

And really there are not that many map makers and its just easier even to navigate things if there all on the same page, even if that page is not technically correct, or even if its way off, well its still easier to get to the same places if they all have the same faulty ideas in there heads.

But ya Africa is a pretty big area. On that, all the maps seem to agree. You know relative and give or take a few things.

Back in the days the people had to fight the establishment and prove that the earth was not flat. The establishment never have been very forthcoming in teaching TRUTH, rather tried to destroy it and laugh behind our backs.

Though we live in an up-side-down world yet these days it is going to be more difficult to prove that the earth has been painted up-side-down like an inverted cross.

It would shake the very foundations of this earth.

Anyone remember the stories about earth's magnetic pole shifting?

Scientists already know that magnetic north shifts. Once every few hundred thousand years the magnetic poles flip so that a compass would point south instead of north.

Also it depends on what kind of ruler your using. Though I think we only really started to really measure things this century, in fact these past 40 years or so as the technology became more accessible and to really picture it whole using satelites and such.

But ya for the most part depends on who's measuring it, and what kind of measuring device there using, and how there measuring it. Its like the coastline Paradox.