The Peters Projection world map was featured in the NBC show "The West
Wing", June 20, 2001. The map was introduced in 1974 by Arno Peters,
in large part to correct what he considered was a distorted political
view of the relative importance of Europe as the "center" of the
world. Arguably, the Eurocentric political world view could be said to
be reinforced by the Mercator projection that is typically used in the
US. Peters's map is an "area accurate" or equal area map, in which one
square unit of area is depicted equally everywhere on the map, as
opposed to the Mercator map, which exaggerates areas to a
progressively greater degree the farther they are from the Equator.
Thus, on a Mercator map, Greenland is almost the same size as Africa,
although Africa is 14 times the area of Greenland. The Peters
Projection preserves the relative sizes by stretching Equatorial
regions on a North-South direction and compressing the Polar regions.
The main advantage of the Mercator map is that direction lines are
always straight within its boundaries, and are accurate within about
15 degrees of the Equator.
The Peters Projection is a recreated version of an earlier map
familiar to cartographers as the Gall Orthographic Projection (James
Gall, 1855). The Peters Projection is controversial mainly because of
the sociopolitical arguments that Peters chose to use to advocate the
adoption of the map.
Map Makes History On WEST WING
http://www.diversophy.com/products/WestWingPR.htm
"TV's favorite press secretary, West Wing's CJ Craig "freaked out" at
the sight of a new view of the world. The show is fictional, but the
map is fact! CJ was stunned by the real Peters Projection world map.
What CJ Craig saw on June 20th's episode of NBC's WEST WING is a map
commonly seen in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America although
almost unheard of in North America. Until West Wing's script writers
discovered the map! A fictional group, the Organization of
Cartographers for Social Equality, pitched President Bartlet's staff
to "aggressively support" legislation mandating every public school in
America teach geography using the Peters Projection map."
[...]
"Peters Projection World maps are available from local book or map
stores or directly from ODT, Inc. at 1-800-736-1293. (E-mail:
petersmaps@aol.com <mailto:petersmaps@aol.com>)"
[...]
"To get the full story on this controversial world map, go to
www.diversophy.com/maps.htm . There you can download Chapter One of
the groundbreaking new book "SEEING THROUGH MAPS: THE POWER OF IMAGES
TO SHAPE OUR WORLD VIEW" by Ward L. Kaiser and Denis Wood."
USGS Site
CARTOGRAPHIC ROOTS
http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/GISLab/Cyprus/cartographic_roots.htm
"The Gall-Peters Projection has created controversy in recent history
for its unique representation. It is a combination of Gall's work in
the 1880s and Peter's Projection from 1972. The philosophy behind
creating this projection was the thought that the Mercator projection
is not accurate enough because of distorted area shapes and because
Europe appears too large and dominant."
Map Projections
http://mac.usgs.gov/mac/isb/pubs/MapProjections/projections.html
"A map projection is used to portray all or part of the round Earth on
a flat surface. This cannot be done without some distortion.
Every projection has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
There is no "best" projection.
The mapmaker must select the one best suited to the needs, reducing
distortion of the most important features."
[...]
"Mercator
Used for navigation or maps of equatorial regions. Any straight line
on the map is a rhumb line (line of constant direction). Directions
along a rhumb line are true between any two points on map, but a rhumb
line is usually not the shortest distance between points. (Sometimes
used with Gnomonic map on which any straight line is on a great circle
and shows shortest path between two points).
Distances are true only along Equator, but are reasonably correct
within 15° of Equator; special scales can be used to measure distances
along other parallels. Two particular parallels can be made correct in
scale instead of the Equator.
Areas and shapes of large areas are distorted. Distortion increases
away from Equator and is extreme in polar regions. Map, however, is
conformal in that angles and shapes within any small area (such as
that shown by USGS topographic map) is essentially true.
The map is not perspective, equal area, or equidistant.
Equator and other parallels are straight lines (spacing increases
toward poles) and meet meridians (equally spaced straight lines) at
right angles. Poles are not shown.
Presented by Mercator in 1569."
Peters Projection
(Gall?s Orthographic Projection)
http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/carto_research/projection/peters.text.pdf
"The need to show area relationships correctly on a world map and the
simplicity of cylindrical projection has led to the development many
equal area cylindrical projections with various choices of standard
parallels as the lines of no distortion....In 1855, James Gall
developed his orthographic projection which used standard parallels at
45E N and S. ...In 1967, Arno Peters re-created Gall?s version of the
equal area cylindrical projection with standard parallels at 45E N and
S and in 1973 presented it at a press conference. Peters insisted that
he created the projection but cartographers recognized it as the same
as Gall?s orthographic.
In Gall?s orthographic or the so-called Peters projection, all
equatorial regions, such as Africa and northern South America, are
stretched to appear about twice as long in a north-south direction as
they should appear relative to the east-west directions. Thus, the
less developed regions have far more shape distortion on this
projection than do the industrialized regions near latitudes 45E,
which have no shape distortion at that latitude. The polar areas
contain even more shape distortion. Because of the extended
north-south areas near the equator, the projection has been referred
to as the ?hanging laundry? projection. The projection appears in the
associated graphic."
Gall's Orthographic or "Peters" Projection
http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/carto_research/projection/gall.pdf
THE PETERS PROJECTION
AN AREA ACCURATE MAP
http://www.petersmap.com/table.html
"The Peters World Map
An area accurate map is a great complement to other maps, as well as a
useful aid in teaching geography. In the classroom, boardroom or
bedroom an alternate presentation of the planet will jostle our
thinking and help us create new mental maps which in turn will foster
creativity and innovation."
Geography 222 The Power of Maps
http://go.owu.edu/~jbkrygie/krygier_html/geog_222/geog_222_lo/geog_222_lo17.html
"* the developable surface it is based on: a cylinder
* what it preserves from the spherical earth: areas
* and what it distorts: shape
But we can also look at the map projection as a human created object
* while it is based on equations and the science of map projection
* it was created for specific, political and ideological purposes
* and it was criticized by cartographers for having a political agenda"
SEARCH TERMS
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=world+map+peters+projection+controversy&btnG=Google+Search
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&q=West+Wing+peters+projection&btnG=Google+Search
Also searched USGS site for Peters Projection.
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