This post originally appeared on Global Citizen. Show
In the last 500 years, a certain kind of map has been used to teach children about our planet. But public schools in Boston have made a big change — and it might alter the way you think about the world. It’s about power. Most might recognize the old map from faded school textbooks. It’s called the Mercator projection. In 1569, Gerardus Mercator built a whole world drawn along colonial lines — literally. The biggest economic powers were given the space on paper to flex their border biceps.  The Mercator projection. (Photo credit: Public domain) The problem? It’s nowhere near to scale. Europe is not the center of the universe — Mercator just moved the equator. North America is nowhere near that big — although it might feel that way if you watch the news. In reality, South America should be twice the size of Europe. Greenland should be 14 times smaller than Africa and three times smaller than Australia, whilst Alaska appears three times larger than its actual big sibling, Mexico. The Mercator projection vastly exaggerates aged imperialist power, at the expense of developing countries and continents like Africa that are shrunk to inferiority. There’s a reason why the Northern Hemisphere is associated with wealth and significance — it’s because it’s literally on top, permanently etched into our subconsciousness as superior from our earliest encounters with learning. But there is another map. A map that laughs in the face of the old world order, that is scaled without topographical bias, that actually tries to tell the truth. Say hello to our survey savior: the Gall-Peters projection. The Gall-Peters projection. (Photo credit: Public domain) More commonly known as the Peters projection, it was published in 1974 by Dr. Arno Peters. It’s an “equal-area” map, borrowed from the work of 19th century Scotsman James Gall, which means it accurately scales land according to surface area, creating a far more balanced reflection of what the world really looks like. It’s totally free of colonial bias. All new maps bought by public schools in Boston will be Peters projection. According to Colin Rose , assistant superintendent of opportunity and achievement gaps for Boston public schools, it’s “the start of a three-year effort to decolonize the curriculum in our public schools,” to draw away from the cultural whitewashing of history in places of education. “Eighty-six percent of our students are students of color,” said Hayden Frederick-Clarke, director of cultural proficiency for Boston Public Schools, in an interview with WBUR . “Once students feel like the school isn’t being truthful, there’s a tendency to shut down and reject information.” No map is perfect — a two-dimensional reflection of a spherical world will always be flawed. Even the derivation of the world implies vulnerability; it comes from the Latin “mappa ”, meaning “napkin”, to describe the surfaces first used to draw them. The Peters projection is not without its blemishes either — it can appear stretched, since there’s just not enough land to effectively translate onto a flat map. If you’re still not entirely sure what on earth we’re talking about, let The West Wing explain: “In our society, we unconsciously equate size with importance and even power,” says one of the cartographers in the video. “When third-world countries are misrepresented, they’re likely to be valued less.” And the problem extends way beyond the classroom. Incredibly, even Google Maps is stuck on the Mercator projection. When the internet has inherited internal bias, a bad idea can spread like an epidemic. The whispered notion that the West is somehow bigger and better than the rest of the world persists, subtly, sneakily, until suddenly world leaders can transform the invisible precedent into rhetoric that swivels between patriotism and nationalism in reckless lurches. Every journey starts with a map. But if you set off on the wrong foot, misdirection can become misadventure. It’s easy to get lost. The hard part is making sure nobody else follows in your footsteps. Already knew Africa was that size? Well, can you correctly guess the location of nine African countries on the map? Find out with our new game!
Take a look at any map, and it’s clear that the African continent is a big place. However, despite the common perception that Africa is a large landmass, it’s still one that is vastly underestimated by most casual map viewers. The reason for this is that the familiar Mercator map projection tends to distort our geographical view of the world in a crucial way — one that often leads to misconceptions about the relative sizes of both countries and continents. A Geographical JigsawToday’s infographic comes from Kai Krause and it shows the true size of Africa, as revealed by the borders of the countries that can fit within the continent’s shape. The African continent has a land area of 30.37 million sq km (11.7 million sq mi) — enough to fit in the U.S., China, India, Japan, Mexico, and many European nations, combined.
You could add together all of the landmasses above and they would not equate to the geographical footprint of Africa, which itself is home to 54 countries and 1.2 billion people. Editor’s note: The above table is slightly different from the countries shown in the visualization, which focuses more on fitting recognizable country shapes into the geographical shape of Africa. Why the Misconception?Interestingly, the problem with maps is not that Africa is sized incorrectly. Using the animation below, you’ll see that Africa is actually the most accurately sized continent using the common Mercator map projection: The Mercator projection attempts to place the spherical shape of the world onto a cylinder, causing areas closest to the poles to be “stretched”. Africa, which straddles the Equator, barely changes in size — meanwhile, the countries furthest from the Equator become inflated from their true sizes on this type of map. For those of us living in Western countries, this is an interesting dilemma to consider. This means that the sizes of European and North American countries are distorted, giving us an inaccurate mental “measuring stick” for judging the relative sizes of other countries. This has implications not only for Africa, but for the whole Southern Hemisphere: South America, India, the Middle East, and even Australia are “bigger” than they may initially appear on a map.
From Netflix to IKEA, this map of the world highlights the most searched for consumer brands around the world.
View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here. In today’s fast-paced world, a strong brand is a powerful asset that helps a business stand out in a sea of competition. What are some of the most popular brands around the world? One way to gauge this is by looking at Google searches to see what consumers are searching for online (and therefore, what brands they’re paying the most attention to). This graphic by BusinessFinancing.co.uk uses data from Google Keyword Planner to show the world’s most searched consumer brands in the twelve months leading up to March 2022. MethodologyTo source this wide of a dataset, the team at BusinessFinancing.co.uk first compiled a list of well-known brands, using a number of reputable sources including Forbes, the Financial Times, BrandDirectory, and more. From there, the team created a shortlist of popular consumer brands. This year, they focused on businesses that sell products and services, so some of the big tech companies like Google and Meta were excluded from the 2022 ranking. Next, the team used Google Ads API to extract search volume data for the shortlisted brands. They looked at a couple of things:
They did this for every country in the world with data available. Here’s what they found. The Top 5 Most Searched BrandsWhile Netflix is the most frequently searched brand in the highest number of countries (92), Amazon takes the top spot when it comes to total search volume. Here’s a look at the top five most search brands by average global monthly searches:
But a brand’s search popularity doesn’t necessarily reflect that the business is thriving. For instance, in April 2022, Netflix announced it had lost around 200,000 subscribers throughout Q1. The week of the announcement, Netflix’s stock price dipped below $200—the lowest it had been since 2017. SmartphonesApple and its iPhone take the top spot when it comes to smartphone searches, which may be unsurprisingly considering the top five best-selling smartphones in 2021 were all iPhones. View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here. It’s worth noting that the top five best-selling smartphones only capture a fraction of the overall smartphone market, and while iPhones are undeniably popular, they only make up 16.7% of worldwide smartphone sales. GamingEpic Games, the creator and platform of Fortnite, maintains its status as the most searched-for gaming brand worldwide, with an average of 14.9 million global monthly searches. View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here. No other gaming company came close to Epic Game’s search volume. For instance, Nintendo, which came in second place, only averaged 3.2 million searches a month. However, Nintendo still managed to generate more than $16 billion in revenue throughout 2021, triple the gross revenue that Epic Games made the same year. Fast FoodKFC was the most searched fast-food company in more than 83 countries, making it the most popular worldwide. View the high resolution of this infographic by clicking here. However, it’s worth noting that, while McDonald’s ranked first in fewer countries, it had a higher global monthly search average than its fried chicken competitor. In 2021, KFC generated approximately $2.79 billion in global revenue, while McDonald’s brought in $23.2 billion.
This map shows over 65,000 of the world’s flight paths and the various airports that each route connects, using data from Open Flights.
There are up to 8,755 commercial flights in the air at any given time of day. These flights transport thousands of people (and millions of dollars worth of goods) around the world. But where are these people and goods headed? This map from Adam Symington uses historical data from OpenFlights to visualize the world’s flight paths. The graphic shows a comprehensive data set encompassing 67,663 different routes that connect 10,000 different airports across the globe. A Note On the DataThe map uses an OpenFlights database provided by the third-party source that hasn’t been updated since June 2014. Because of this, the data used for the graphic is of historical value only. However, this detailed map sparked our curiosity and got us wondering—what are some of the busiest aviation hubs around the world right now? We did some digging, and here’s what we found. Busiest Airports by PassengersThere are several ways to gauge an airport’s popularity. One way is to measure total passenger traffic throughout the year. According to Airports Council International (ACI), eight of the top 10 busiest airports for passenger traffic in 2021 were in America. Here’s a look at the top 10 list, as of April 11, 2022:
In 2021, the airport with the most passenger traffic was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. It accommodated more than 75 million passengers last year—a 76.4% increase compared to 2020 figures. Hartsfield-Jackson is well-known for being one of the busiest airports in the world. One reason for this is its convenient location—according to the airport’s official website, Atlanta is within a two-hour flight from 80% of the U.S. population. Dallas/Forth Worth (DFW) came in second place, seeing 62.5 million passengers throughout 2021. DFW was one of the only airports to boost its service offerings throughout the pandemic, and is also the main hub for American Airlines, the world’s largest airline by fleet size. Busiest Airports by CargoWhile the U.S. dominates the ranking when it comes to passenger traffic, the list is much more diverse when looking at air cargo volumes. Here’s a look at the ranking, based on loaded and unloaded freight and mail (including transit freight):
Hong Kong (HKG) takes the top spot since the airport processed more than 5.0 million metric tonnes of freight and mail throughout 2021. Hong Kong has been known as one of the busiest air cargo hubs for over a decade and is able to maintain this reputation because of its strategic location, impressive infrastructure, efficient customs, and business-friendly trade regulations. The COVID-19 Impact on AviationThe global pandemic hit the aviation industry hard. At its lowest point, international travel was down 98% from normal levels. While the aviation industry is starting to recover from its COVID-induced slump, things still haven’t fully bounced back yet, especially in places like Shanghai, where lockdowns are still being mandated. But experts remain hopeful for the future. According to ACI World’s General Director Luis Felipe de Oliveira, last year’s recovery was just the beginning.
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Why is Africa so small on maps?
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