How Do Maps Represent the World?

Maps are like pictures of the world, but they're not perfect. Imagine you're drawing a round ball on flat paper, it can look squashed or stretched depending on where you draw it from. That’s how maps work! Some maps make countries look bigger than they really are, just like how your shadow changes size depending on where the sun is.

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Examples

A map shows Greenland as huge, even though it's smaller than Australia.
Maps make Antarctica look like a big continent, but in reality, it's almost invisible from space.
A flat map of the Earth can’t show all parts accurately, that’s why some maps are cut into pieces.

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Categories: Culture · maps,cartography,geography,perspective,cultural bias