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in reply to drawmap.pl - Spot The Monk!

I don't know if you have choice of map projections but a north centric one like Mercator would seem more appropriate due to the density of PMs in the northern hemisphere. Its "unfairness" (northern hemisphere appears to be way bigger than the southern one) is a good property here.

See map projections and Mercator Projection at britannica.com for more info.

-- stefp

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Re: Re: drawmap.pl - Spot The Monk!
by Tiefling (Monk) on Jun 19, 2001 at 15:56 UTC
    I apologise for a mild attack on a liberal shibboleth, but the Mercator Projection is only 'north-centric' if one is particularly concerned about equal area properties, in which case one wouldn't choose it at all, but would use Lambert's or another such projection. The reason that the Mercator projection appears to enhance the North is not (as some would have you believe) that it was designed by some chauvinistic northerner (although it may have been) but because there is comparatively little habitable land in the southern hemisphere. If you get a proper Mercator map (that is, one which actually has the equator half-way up it, and not over 2/3 of the way down it), you'll see that the Southern Hemisphere is depicted as largely water (which is accurate, although the precise details are distorted by the projection), and Antarctica appears huge - about as big as Asia.

    This has been your daily Irrelevant Iconoclasm.

    Tiefling (who thinks there are better ways of highlighting the plight of the 'South' than lying about cartography)

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