• BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Why is the difference only extremely pronounced in the northern hemisphere? If I understand the math behind the projection correctly, the equator should be true scale, and things should vary more the further north AND south you go.

    This image shows the extreme southern latitudes to be almost equal to their true area. Is the image wrong, or am I misunderstanding something about the projection?

    • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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      1 day ago

      This map is clipping a good chunk of the Southern Hemisphere. When you include it, you also notice the same distortion:

      Note how it looks like Antarctica (14*10⁶km²) is 1/4~1/5 of the globe, even if it’s actually smaller than South America (18*10⁶km²).

    • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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      1 day ago

      It doesn’t show Antarctica, but also there’s just more stuff in the far north than the far south (if we aren’t counting Antarctica)