'Radically Different': This Could Be The Most Accurate Flat World Map Ever Made

Don't deny it. The place we call home is at the center of our favorite world map. Everything feels unbalanced when the world map is flipped to the left or right.

It is a reflection of how maps can shape how we view and understand the world.

A group of researchers revealed a new version of the planet in a double-sided map last year. It is round and flat like a pancake in an attempt to give us a less distorted view of the world.

The new map was designed by physicist David Goldberg and mathematician Robert Vanderbrei.

After creating a system to score existing maps on how skewed they are, and how much areas and distances are bent out of shape, the trio set out to make a flat map with the least error possible.

The map is double-sided. Gott, Vanderbei, and Goldberg.

The researchers wrote that they believed it was the most accurate flat map of Earth yet.

Any flat map of the sphere can't be perfect, but ours does better than previous maps at minimizing the errors in local shapes, areas, bending, and distances.

With satellite technology, airborne lasers, and big data mash-ups, scientists today are well-equipped to map all sorts of things, from forests breathing carbon and continents on the move to how humans have wreaked havoc on Earth.

They are still trying to figure out how to turn our Christmas bauble into a map. Maps distort the world immensely because they help us visualize the way things are.

Map makers have to use a few mathematical tricks to faithfully represent some Earthly features while sacrificing others because it is impossible to represent the surface of a sphere as a flat map without some form of distortion.

Some world maps are designed to preserve the shape of countries, whereas other maps are designed to bulge at the equator.

The interactive visualization shows how distorted the world gets when map makers try to flatten out the globe.

Fun interactive tool by @mf_viz allows us to overlay hundreds of map projections at a time. A great visual way of understanding the distortion of maps. Areas along the equator stay much the same of course. Source: https://t.co/8VpoQPaU7j pic.twitter.com/jPeCnOOkEG

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) February 16, 2021

The best all-rounder is a compromise. The Winkel Tripel projection is used by National Geographic for its world maps.

The Pacific Ocean is cut between Japan and California, making it look larger than it really is.

Buckminster Fuller and Hajime Narukawa both tried to unfold the world in different ways. Some people are having fun fanning out Earth like an orange peel.

This map, a two-sided flat disk, was created using an entirely different approach.

We are squashing the globe as if we had run over it with a steamroller.

The researchers say that it gives a more accurate representation of the world than existing flat maps.

The map is more similar to the globe than other flat maps.

The equator can be seen around the edge of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

"This is a map you can hold in your hand, which could be appealing to any avid hiker or city sightseers who knows all too well that paper maps expanded to arm."

Africa and South America are draped over the edge, like a sheet over a clothesline, but they are continuous.

It could be a useful tool for teaching kids about the world because distances across oceans or poles are both accurate and easy to measure.

There are still some distortions with this disk map, just not as big as with other projections. The edges are 1.57 times larger than the center and can be out by a fifth.

No regular one-sided flat map can do that.

Who knows if it will become a classroom sensation, or if it will end up in a box like your old CD collection? The map puts a new spin on the term "flat-earther".

The original article was published in February 2021.