Perspective
6:31 PM Posted In race Edit This 6 Comments »
Check out these two maps:
This one is your typical map. One that is (at least mostly) current. That you could find anywhere.
This one is proportionally correct. The continents are sized correctly according to the land area actually covered by each continent.
Notice a difference? Anyone care to speculate why?
(These maps and comparison were brought to you by Wide Horizons monthly waiting parent email.)
This one is your typical map. One that is (at least mostly) current. That you could find anywhere.
This one is proportionally correct. The continents are sized correctly according to the land area actually covered by each continent.
Notice a difference? Anyone care to speculate why?
(These maps and comparison were brought to you by Wide Horizons monthly waiting parent email.)
6 comments:
Most world maps also put the US at the center of the map. At least the two maps you have here don't do that. Here's another map that I love! It really puts into perspective just how big Africa really is.
http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/index.html
--Jennifer
I was really hoping to see a happy birthday kathryn posting and your face! love you hugs and hugs
mom :)
Jennifer noticed the same thing I did...at least these don't have the US as the center of the universe! I saw that big Africa map she mentions at the really cool Africa exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in Chicago. I thought that was the neatest thing I had seen.
I actually heard about this from a West Wing episode (dorky, I know). In the episode, the scientists explain that white colonization and imperialism affected the way western civilizations (mainly Europe) wanted to see the world. Size and centralization = power. In order to validate their power and global prevalence, western cultures chose to see the world as the first map illustrates. I'd equate it with the Catholic church in the 16th century feeling threatened when Copernicus argued that the Earth actually was not the center of the universe.
Without making blatant generalizations, it seems like a lot of it has to do with fear of those in the Southern Hemisphere (fear of the masses uprising, rebelling, or otherwise taking away our sense of power). Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere perhaps feel (or at one time, felt) safer knowing that we're proportionally larger than we really are. Maybe a little over-dramatized?
I actually heard about this from a West Wing episode (dorky, I know). In the episode, the scientists explain that white colonization and imperialism affected the way western civilizations (mainly Europe) wanted to see the world. Size and centralization = power. In order to validate their power and global prevalence, western cultures chose to see the world as the first map illustrates. I'd equate it with the Catholic church in the 16th century feeling threatened when Copernicus argued that the Earth actually was not the center of the universe.
Without making blatant generalizations, it seems like a lot of it has to do with fear of those in the Southern Hemisphere (fear of the masses uprising, rebelling, or otherwise taking away our sense of power). Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere perhaps feel (or at one time, felt) safer knowing that we're proportionally larger than we really are. Maybe a little over-dramatized?
you know, i first saw this from the west wing episode too! really puts everything into perspective...it is interesting living in singapore now, too, because all of the maps here have asia on the front rather than north america... makes you realize how relative and egocentric everything is...
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