Editing 2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

{{comic
| number    = 2613
| date      = April 29, 2022
| title     = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image     = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a MADAGASCARIAN GIANT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This is another comic in the [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] series.  This time, Randall used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}.  This is valid, as Earth is pretty much symmetrical{{citation needed}}, but the axis choice is unusual.  Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes.

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s because it is conformal - the angle between two places on the map is the same as the angle between them in the real world.  During the age of sail, when navigation was performed by compass - this was a very valuable feature, since one could plot a course between two locations by measuring the direction from one to another on the map and then accounting for the difference between the magnetic and actual north poles to determine what direction to sail in.  In the mid-20th century this trend was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because the distortion towards the north and south poles gave an inaccurate impression of relative sizes.  The most common example given of this distortion is that on a Mercator map of the world Greenland looks to have more area than Africa, when in real life Africa covers 14 times that of Greenland.  Thus the reference to making Madagascar larger in this projection. Madagascar is a large island, but has only a quarter the coverage of Greenland. Greenland is often listed as the largest island in the world (which excludes continents in their own right, e.g. Australia) followed by New Guinea, Borneo and then Madagascar in fourth place.

Mahé, mentioned in the title text as the north pole's new location, is the largest island in Seychelles, with an area of 60.7 square miles. The claim in the title text, however, that it is "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined", is hard to verify when it is not actually displayed in the projection. It is possible depending on how extreme the size distortion caused by the projection becomes when at such a short distance from the 'North Pole', or in this case, the small lake it has been relocated to.

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascar

Madagascar projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of greenland

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]