Mixed feeling over map

Press, 31 January 1984, Page 14

Mixed feeling over map

By NZPA staff correspondent Washington A West German map with a new projection of the world is getting a mixed reception in the United States. The traditional, 400-year-old Mercator projection wrongly shows Northern Hemisphere countries as much too big, with Greenland, for example (2000 sq km) appearing twice the size of China (9.2 M sq km) and the Soviet Union (21.8 M sq km) 2% times as large as Africa (29M sq km).

The Equator runs across the middle of the new map, it is much lower down on the Mercator projection, and Africa is in the centre.

The map was printed in German in 1974, but an English-language version has only just appeared in Washington. Some American geographers dismiss it, and

others say they have not heard of it. Proponents of the new map say the Mercator projection distorts the world to the advantage of the old colonial Powers, with the Northern Hemisphere land mass appearing as big or bigger than the Southern Hemisphere, whereas northern countries total only 47.25 M sq km against the Southern Hemisphere’s 96.5 M sq km. The three million member Lutheran Church of America has ordered 8000 copies — more than a quar-. ter of the first printing — and will send one to each of its congregations. “People south of the Equator can get a better image of themselves in viewing the world,” said a spokesman, Arthur Bauer. “It is a reflection of basic Christian understanding.”