The equal-area rebels

In 1855 James Gall, a Scottish clergyman, presented a projection that kept areas true and was largely ignored. In 1973 the filmmaker Arno Peters relaunched almost the same projection as the "Peters World Map", framing Mercator as a distortion that shrank the Global South. Cartographers objected to his overclaims; UNESCO, churches and aid agencies adopted the map anyway.

In 1989 seven North American geographic organisations resolved that no rectangular projection should be used for general world maps. Atlases moved to compromise projections: National Geographic to Robinson in 1988, then Winkel Tripel in 1998.

Schools kept the argument alive. Boston Public Schools switched to Gall-Peters in 2017; Nebraska banned Mercator from classrooms in 2024. Norway and Nigeria, highlighted here, are within a factor of three in area. On Mercator, Norway looks like the giant.