Equal Earth

Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny published Equal Earth in August 2018 as a direct answer to Boston's choice: equal-area, yet it still looks like the world people recognise. Parallels are straight, meridians curve gently, and the rounded outline hints at the sphere. NASA used it within weeks.

The circles are Tissot's indicatrices: identical circles on the ground, each 445 km across, projected onto the map. On Equal Earth every one keeps its area; near the poles they squash into ellipses. That shape cost is what this projection pays instead of Mercator's area cost.

No flat map avoids both. Mercator keeps angles, Equal Earth keeps area, Robinson and Winkel Tripel split the difference. Only a globe keeps everything.