How do maps shrink the whole world onto paper?
Map's Honest Lies
How do maps shrink the whole world onto paper?
You're holding a map the size of a magazine, and somehow the entire Earth — 197 million square miles of oceans, mountains, cities, and clouds — fits on it. How does that work? How do you shrink a giant spinning ball onto flat paper without breaking it?
First, you have to pick what you're willing to lose. Here's the problem: Earth is a sphere, and paper is flat. You can't peel the skin off an orange and lay it flat without ripping it or stretching it. Mapmakers face the same impossible task, so they cheat — they choose which truth to keep and which to bend.
