Latest news with #cartography
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Africa is much bigger than you think. Here's how you've been misled
The African Union is championing a drive to replace the 16th-century Mercator world map, arguing its widespread use by governments and international bodies inaccurately depicts Africa's true scale. The projection, devised by cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, distorts continent sizes, inflating areas near the poles like North America and Greenland, while shrinking Africa and South America. Selma Malika Haddadi, the deputy chairperson of the AU Commission, said the map's impact is significant. "It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not." She argued that the Mercator fosters a false impression of Africa as "marginal", despite it being the world's second-largest continent, with 54 nations and over a billion people. Such stereotypes influence media, education, and policy, she said. Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the 'Correct The Map' campaign – led by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa – has revived the debate, urging organisations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries' true sizes. "The current size of the map of Africa is wrong," Moky Makura, executive director of Africa No Filter, said. "It's the world's longest misinformation and disinformation campaign, and it just simply has to stop." Fara Ndiaye, co-founder of Speak Up Africa, said the Mercator affected Africans' identity and pride, especially children who might encounter it early in school. "We're actively working on promoting a curriculum where the Equal Earth projection will be the main standard across all (African) classrooms," Ms Ndiaye said, adding she hoped it would also be the one used by global institutions, including Africa-based ones. Ms Haddadi said the AU endorsed the campaign, adding it aligned with its goal of "reclaiming Africa's rightful place on the global stage" amid growing calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery. The AU will advocate for wider map adoption and discuss collective actions with member states, Ms Haddadi added. The Mercator projection is still widely used, including by schools and tech companies. Google Maps switched from Mercator on desktop to a 3D globe view in 2018, though users can still switch back to the Mercator if they prefer. On the mobile app, however, the Mercator projection remains the default. 'Correct The Map' wants organisations like the World Bank and the United Nations to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said they already use the Winkel-Tripel or Equal Earth for static maps and are phasing out Mercator on web maps. The campaign said it has sent a request to the UN geospatial body, UN-GGIM. A UN spokesperson said that once received it must be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts. Other regions are backing the AU's efforts. Dorbrene O'Marde, Vice Chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission, endorsed Equal Earth as a rejection of Mercator map's "ideology of power and dominance".
The Independent
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Africa is much bigger than you think. Here's how you've been misled
The African Union is championing a drive to replace the 16th-century Mercator world map, arguing its widespread use by governments and international bodies inaccurately depicts Africa 's true scale. The projection, devised by cartographer Gerardus Mercator for navigation, distorts continent sizes, inflating areas near the poles like North America and Greenland, while shrinking Africa and South America. Selma Malika Haddadi, the deputy chairperson of the AU Commission, said the map's impact is significant. "It might seem to be just a map, but in reality, it is not." She argued that the Mercator fosters a false impression of Africa as "marginal", despite it being the world's second-largest continent, with 54 nations and over a billion people. Such stereotypes influence media, education, and policy, she said. Criticism of the Mercator map is not new, but the 'Correct The Map' campaign – led by advocacy groups Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa – has revived the debate, urging organisations to adopt the 2018 Equal Earth projection, which tries to reflect countries' true sizes. "The current size of the map of Africa is wrong," Moky Makura, executive director of Africa No Filter, said. "It's the world's longest misinformation and disinformation campaign, and it just simply has to stop." Fara Ndiaye, co-founder of Speak Up Africa, said the Mercator affected Africans' identity and pride, especially children who might encounter it early in school. "We're actively working on promoting a curriculum where the Equal Earth projection will be the main standard across all (African) classrooms," Ms Ndiaye said, adding she hoped it would also be the one used by global institutions, including Africa-based ones. Ms Haddadi said the AU endorsed the campaign, adding it aligned with its goal of "reclaiming Africa's rightful place on the global stage" amid growing calls for reparations for colonialism and slavery. The AU will advocate for wider map adoption and discuss collective actions with member states, Ms Haddadi added. The Mercator projection is still widely used, including by schools and tech companies. Google Maps switched from Mercator on desktop to a 3D globe view in 2018, though users can still switch back to the Mercator if they prefer. On the mobile app, however, the Mercator projection remains the default. 'Correct The Map' wants organisations like the World Bank and the United Nations to adopt the Equal Earth map. A World Bank spokesperson said they already use the Winkel-Tripel or Equal Earth for static maps and are phasing out Mercator on web maps. The campaign said it has sent a request to the UN geospatial body, UN-GGIM. A UN spokesperson said that once received it must be reviewed and approved by a committee of experts. Other regions are backing the AU's efforts. Dorbrene O'Marde, Vice Chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission, endorsed Equal Earth as a rejection of Mercator map's "ideology of power and dominance".
ABC News
05-08-2025
- Science
- ABC News
European cartographers' inaccurate maps of Australia have plenty to teach us
Looking at some of the early European cartographers' maps of the Australian continent, it's hard to not be amused by the inaccuracies. In one, we see Queensland conjoined with Papua New Guinea, while Tasmania melts off the page, dragging most of the eastern coastline with it. In another, much older, map the entire southern hemisphere is dominated by one massive, hypothetical continent known as "Terra Australis" that had first been proposed by the Ancient Greeks. (Observing that most of the "known world" — Europe, Africa and Asia — was in the northern half of the globe, philosophers and scientists believed there would have to be a land mass equally as large on the other side to balance it all out.) But maps like these can tell us about more than just the rough guesstimations made by 17th-century Europeans in sailing ships. The National Library of Australia holds many fascinating and precious maps from the early years of European exploration and colonisation of Australia. Two particularly intriguing ones are unassuming and oddly-shaped prints that the library acquired in 2024. These maps show an incomplete coastline of Australia as it was known to Europeans in 1696 — nearly a century before Captain Cook or the First Fleet. "Dutch and other ships were frequently blown off course on their way to the East Indies," library curator Susannah Helman says. "They mapped what they found." These unusual prints are known as globe gores: rare leftovers from the workshop of Vincenzo Coronelli, a highly sought after Italian cartographer and globe-maker of the 17th century. Pre-modern globe-making was a painstaking task. As anyone who's ever tried to gift a soccer ball for Christmas will know, wrapping paper around a sphere is tricky work. First, a frame from timber was constructed, then covered with layer upon layer of paper, fabric, glue and plaster, forming a smooth sphere. Next, strips of paper — shaped like slices of an orange — were glued around a plaster sphere. The precision involved in this craft was astronomical: if the papers were one millimetre out of alignment, the whole globe could be ruined. While a few dozen of Coronelli's globes can be found in museums and collections around the world, only a handful of these unfinished globe gores have survived. "Having these leaves as separate pieces makes them easier to examine for researchers, or to put on display in our galleries," library curator Alice Quinn says. "It also shows the Australian coast in its partially mapped state, showing that European exploration of the continent was still in progress." Below the incomplete coastline of Australia, Coronelli's globe gores feature a prominent whaling scene. "From the illustration, we are fairly certain it depicts First Nations people hunting whales from canoes and using spears," Quinn says. "Sadly, due to the lack of detail we are unable to tell if they are First Australians or Pasifika peoples, or maybe people indigenous to another area of the world." Traditionally, gaps in European maps were often filled with decorative motifs or mythical sea monsters, but Coronelli chose instead to depict a living culture. "Coronelli would have seen his works not just as decorative, but at the cutting edge of cartographic research. "It is likely that he had seen depictions of First Nations people in reports and publications from explorers of the period, and included them in his own work to demonstrate that he was abreast of the knowledge coming back from the newly European-explored areas of the map." When asked if they have a favourite map in the library's collection, Quinn and Helman say it's hard to choose. "I am particularly fond of our pocket globe by Herman Moll (1719) which is only 9 centimetres in diameter," Quinn says. "I find the concept of pocket globes particularly amusing. I can imagine Georgian dandies retrieving one from their pockets to win pedantic arguments." Helman, on the other hand, favours one of the library's other recent acquisitions: a 1608 map of Asia by Willem Blaeu. "[It's] a landmark map of our region from the dawn of the Dutch Golden Age," she says. "It is believed to be the only surviving copy that has mapping and text comparatively intact … You can see ships, delightful decorative flourishes and even monsters on the map." In our era of Google Maps and satellites, these early European maps of Australia and our region may appear inaccurate, but they still have plenty of stories to tell.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Madonna to New Order and Oasis, one man's odyssey to make an ‘atlas of album cover maps'
Growing up in rural Wangaratta in north-eastern Victoria, Damien Saunder spent many a wintry day listening to music on the family's record player. Just beneath the stereo was a Reader's Digest atlas. 'Anytime we put on a record, I'd get out the atlas,' Saunder recalls. 'It was like a gateway to the world – a way to dream, explore and let your mind wander.' Decades later, music and maps have come together again, this time in a coffee table book: Maps on Vinyl, a world-first survey of the cartographic influence on album sleeve design; an atlas of album cover maps. It's the book most music fans – and map-makers – never knew they needed. Saunder is a cartographer by trade. Formerly director of cartography at National Geographic and head of cartography at Apple ('I can't talk about what we do there,' he says), he also helped develop a system for 'mapping' tennis matches using ball-tracking technology, which in turn led to him working with Grand Slammers including Roger Federer. But music and album cover design have always been passions. While he was studying typography at the ArtCenter College of Design in the US, a lecturer recommended looking at album covers for inspiration. 'That's when I wondered: have maps influenced album cover design? Turns out, they have – though strangely, it hasn't been studied in cartographic academia. So, I dove in.' Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The project became a four-year labour of love: 32,000 words and a collection of more than 415 vinyl records – some of them deeply obscure, some celebrated. Artists with sleeves in the collection include Oasis, Coldplay, Talking Heads, Devo, Bob Marley, XTC, MC5, Queen, New Order, James Brown and Weezer. Others you will not have heard of unless you're into Belgian speedcore. Some major names in the design and graphics world are there, too: Peter Saville (New Order etc), Curtis McNair (Motown's in-house designer), Neville Garrick (Bob Marley's art director), Roger Dean (maker of fantasy worlds for the covers of Yes and Asia LPs) and Pedro Bell (Funkadelic, etc). Saunder collected physical copies of each record and photographed all the sleeves himself. That was one job he grossly underestimated, he says. 'I set up a light room in our lounge, photographed each one, made sure the white and black colours appeared as they should, cleaned them, colour-corrected them – three to four tasks per cover … times 415 covers. I pushed through, but I definitely had some moments of doubt.' Then there was the research. Where possible, Saunder tracked down the designer responsible for each sleeve design to ask them how their concept came about and what it means. The selection criteria for the book was strict: no landscape paintings; no satellite photography. 'A map had to be an abstraction of a geographic form – real or fictitious – and show spatial relationships. That distinction helped narrow the collection.' While maps are often celebrated for their beauty, they can also contain layers of meaning, says Saunder. 'Even the most basic shapes of countries can draw out a lot of feelings – positive and negative.' The reasons for using maps on album sleeves vary. Some reflect origins – the country or city a band or artist comes from – while others are more aspirational. Peter Barrett's sleeve design for the UK pressing of Madonna's 1983 album Borderline, featuring conjoined maps of New York and London, speaks of a star about to make it in the UK. ('Did Madonna sign off on it? I don't know,' says Saunder. 'Is she into maps? I don't know, but that would likely be the story behind that particular one.') Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Some designs address global social or environmental issues. Others map the mind, imaginary places, feelings, worldviews – or, in the case of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's The Equatorial Stars, deep space. Among Saunder's personal favourites is a sleeve from the long-gone Iowa alt rock band House of Large Sizes, showing a cake whose icing is decorated with a map, with a chunk missing. 'It's a commentary on how we're consuming the world piece by piece, almost without noticing,' says Saunder. Another favourite cover comes from Belgian punk band Hetze: an illustration of a globe dangling by a thread from the forefinger of an elegant, long-nailed hand, by tattoo artist Florence Roman. Then there's the minimalist cover of Mary Scholz's album California, a collaboration between the singer and guitarist Zachary Ross, showing a wide brush stroke in the shape of the golden state, the paint fading out towards the coast. 'It's like a never-ending horizon of opportunities being swept off into the ocean,' says Saunder. 'Having gone off to work and live in California myself, that means something to me.' During the writing process, Saunder spoke to influential graphic designers such as Peter Saville, creator of sleeves for Joy Division, New Order, OMD and Ultravox. He has three covers in the book – one of them created for Canada's Martha and the Muffins based on a 1:150,000-scaled map from the National Topographic System of Canada. 'I fired off an email thinking he [Saville] would be too busy or whatever, but … we ended up having a great chat. He has a genuine passion for the language of maps and cartography,' says Saunder. All proceeds from the sale of the book are going to Support Act, an organisation helping musicians deal with the emotional, physical and financial challenges rife in the industry. 'Without music, there are no album sleeves or books like this,' Saunder says. 'It didn't feel right to profit from others' artwork, so this was my way of giving back.' Maps on Vinyl: An Atlas of Album Cover Maps is out now.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Madonna to New Order and Oasis, one man's odyssey to make an ‘atlas of album cover maps'
Growing up in rural Wangaratta in north-eastern Victoria, Damien Saunder spent many a wintry day listening to music on the family's record player. Just beneath the stereo was a Reader's Digest atlas. 'Anytime we put on a record, I'd get out the atlas,' Saunder recalls. 'It was like a gateway to the world – a way to dream, explore and let your mind wander.' Decades later, music and maps have come together again, this time in a coffee table book: Maps on Vinyl, a world-first survey of the cartographic influence on album sleeve design; an atlas of album cover maps. It's the book most music fans – and map-makers – never knew they needed. Saunder is a cartographer by trade. Formerly director of cartography at National Geographic and head of cartography at Apple ('I can't talk about what we do there,' he says), he also helped develop a system for 'mapping' tennis matches using ball-tracking technology, which in turn led to him working with Grand Slammers including Roger Federer. But music and album cover design have always been passions. While he was studying typography at the ArtCenter College of Design in the US, a lecturer recommended looking at album covers for inspiration. 'That's when I wondered: have maps influenced album cover design? Turns out, they have – though strangely, it hasn't been studied in cartographic academia. So, I dove in.' Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The project became a four-year labour of love: 32,000 words and a collection of more than 415 vinyl records – some of them deeply obscure, some celebrated. Artists with sleeves in the collection include Oasis, Coldplay, Talking Heads, Devo, Bob Marley, XTC, MC5, Queen, New Order, James Brown and Weezer. Others you will not have heard of unless you're into Belgian speedcore. Some major names in the design and graphics world are there, too: Peter Saville (New Order etc), Curtis McNair (Motown's in-house designer), Neville Garrick (Bob Marley's art director), Roger Dean (maker of fantasy worlds for the covers of Yes and Asia LPs) and Pedro Bell (Funkadelic, etc). Saunder collected physical copies of each record and photographed all the sleeves himself. That was one job he grossly underestimated, he says. 'I set up a light room in our lounge, photographed each one, made sure the white and black colours appeared as they should, cleaned them, colour-corrected them – three to four tasks per cover … times 415 covers. I pushed through, but I definitely had some moments of doubt.' Then there was the research. Where possible, Saunder tracked down the designer responsible for each sleeve design to ask them how their concept came about and what it means. The selection criteria for the book was strict: no landscape paintings; no satellite photography. 'A map had to be an abstraction of a geographic form – real or fictitious – and show spatial relationships. That distinction helped narrow the collection.' While maps are often celebrated for their beauty, they can also contain layers of meaning, says Saunder. 'Even the most basic shapes of countries can draw out a lot of feelings – positive and negative.' The reasons for using maps on album sleeves vary. Some reflect origins – the country or city a band or artist comes from – while others are more aspirational. Peter Barrett's sleeve design for the UK pressing of Madonna's 1983 album Borderline, featuring conjoined maps of New York and London, speaks of a star about to make it in the UK. ('Did Madonna sign off on it? I don't know,' says Saunder. 'Is she into maps? I don't know, but that would likely be the story behind that particular one.') Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Some designs address global social or environmental issues. Others map the mind, imaginary places, feelings, worldviews – or, in the case of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's The Equatorial Stars, deep space. Among Saunder's personal favourites is a sleeve from the long-gone Iowa alt rock band House of Large Sizes, showing a cake whose icing is decorated with a map, with a chunk missing. 'It's a commentary on how we're consuming the world piece by piece, almost without noticing,' says Saunder. Another favourite cover comes from Belgian punk band Hetze: an illustration of a globe dangling by a thread from the forefinger of an elegant, long-nailed hand, by tattoo artist Florence Roman. Then there's the minimalist cover of Mary Scholz's album California, a collaboration between the singer and guitarist Zachary Ross, showing a wide brush stroke in the shape of the golden state, the paint fading out towards the coast. 'It's like a never-ending horizon of opportunities being swept off into the ocean,' says Saunder. 'Having gone off to work and live in California myself, that means something to me.' During the writing process, Saunder spoke to influential graphic designers such as Peter Saville, creator of sleeves for Joy Division, New Order, OMD and Ultravox. He has three covers in the book – one of them created for Canada's Martha and the Muffins based on a 1:150,000-scaled map from the National Topographic System of Canada. 'I fired off an email thinking he [Saville] would be too busy or whatever, but … we ended up having a great chat. He has a genuine passion for the language of maps and cartography,' says Saunder. All proceeds from the sale of the book are going to Support Act, an organisation helping musicians deal with the emotional, physical and financial challenges rife in the industry. 'Without music, there are no album sleeves or books like this,' Saunder says. 'It didn't feel right to profit from others' artwork, so this was my way of giving back.' Maps on Vinyl: An Atlas of Album Cover Maps is out now.
