Maps are incredibly important to us, whether or not you could ace a National Geographic
geography bee, since they’re literally how we understand the world around us (well, you
could go there, but maps are important for that, too), but every map has to make a very
specific, but important choice: how exactly does it need to lie to you?
Now, when you think about it, maps (especially 2D maps) are all lying to you in some way.
And I don’t just mean maps like these [oh god, I think I’m going to be sick], but
almost all maps need to find a way to lie about what it’s showing, in order to convey
the ideas it’s trying to convey to you.
We all know about the Mercator Projection, and how Greenland isn’t actually anywhere
near the size of Africa, but maps also need to choose what to exclude, as well as include,
because unless you’re mapping somewhere like rural Mongolia, there will be a lot of
useful information to include, but including absolutely everything will give the map so
much information that it’s impossible to draw any information from it.
Let’s use transit as an example, let’s say you’re a clueless tourist, trying to
get around Berlin.
So let’s say you’re trying to get from Alexanderplatz to Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
Now, Berlin, being the capital and largest city of Germany, is insanely well connected,
which is great when you’re trying to actually get somewhere, but not so much if you want
to actually understand how to get there.
Berlin has multiple options for transit.
First off, you could drive there, or take a taxi, or something like that, so it would
be nice to see the roads.
Now, if you might want to save on some money, you could take the S-Bahn, or the U-Bahn.
Additionally, you could also take the trams, since most of this trip would be in former
East Berlin.
Then, of course, there’s also the option to take the bus, which Berlin has a lot of;
and of course, you could also rent a bike… and let’s also show the course of the old
Berlin Wall, just for good measure.
So this map is pretty crowded and confusing, and in practice, you don’t need that much
information.
The London Tube map suffers hugely from this.
This is why the tram maps in Berlin only show the tram lines, and the S & U-Bahn lines are
still shown, but are faded out, just so you know where you are on the network.
Metro maps around the world also rarely show streets, and not doing so also allows them
to play with proportions, which helps make it easier to design and comprehend.
My personal favorite/least favorite example of this was the MAX Light Rail map, back in
Portland, which makes it look like a trip across all of downtown Portland is about the
same length as the entire eastside, even though Rose Quarter to Gateway is nearly 100 blocks,
and Oak/SW 3rd to Providence Park isn’t even 10 blocks.
Come on, people!
However, if downtown Portland were represented accurately on the MAX maps (as it is in some
cases), there wouldn’t be a way to show the map without jam-packing everything into
something that didn’t even make sense.
Really, though, metro maps are terrible as walking guides, because they’re meant to
make you think “oh, so that station leads to that other station in this way, but not
in that way, I get it!”, not “oh, okay, so I could just walk directly west from Voltastraße
to Humboldthain, and catch the S-Bahn there”, because that’s not how the neighborhood
is shaped!
Let’s say I wanted to go somewhere further, like if I wanted to fly somewhere.
If I wanted to fly to London, or Istanbul, everything seems pretty normal, right?
Just a normal, straight line, makes sense.
Well, what if I wanted to come back to America, all I would need to do is draw a straight,
direct line to… whoa, why is it curved?!
You’ve probably seen this before on airplane maps, but a perfectly straight flight from
Berlin to Portland would actually take me up past Iceland and Greenland, and down through
western Canada, instead of through the mid-Atlantic, and America’s heartland.
This, again, has to do with the fact that we’re displaying the map as a flat surface.
Really, it’s a straight line on a curved surface, but flattening the plane doesn’t
make the line very happy.
Also, do notice how the line changes direction if we reroute the flight to somewhere like
Sydney, and how it’s still completely straight when flying to Cape Town.
As you’ve probably heard it said time and time again, there is no way to project a sphere
onto a flat plane without some minor distortions.
In the case of world maps, some aren’t noticeable, while others are frankly nauseating to look
at [oh god, I think I’m going to be sick].
The most famous of these nowadays is the Mercator projection, which Google Maps is known for
using, since it’s easy to zoom in on, but it also over exaggerates the furthest northern
and southern latitudes, and squishes the equatorial latitudes, which makes Greenland look about
the size of Africa, and makes Canada and Russia look even bigger than all of Texas.
It also makes Antarctica look like a huge ice wall at the bottom of our planet, which
is probably why most Mercator maps cut off the south pole, which also puts the equator
further down than it should be, and thus makes the southern hemisphere look smaller than
the northern hemisphere, but I mean, who even lives down there, anyway?
JADE: Excuse me?
WILLIE: Wait, Jade from Up and Atom?
What are you doing here?
I didn’t give Australia a speaking role in this video, did I?
JADE: No, and last time I checked, I’m pretty sure there isn’t another criminal joke in
there, either.
I was just here to tell everyone that…
WILLIE: Wait, last time you checked?
How did you know what I was going to be talking about here?
JADE: You shared your script with me, remember?
Because we’re collaborating?
WILLIE: Oh yeah, that’s right!
Yeah, this video was made in tandem with Jade’s channel, Up and Atom, who made a video about
the four-color map theorem.
Definitely check it out after this video’s over, if you haven’t already!
Okay, so what about normal, non-distorted globes?
Are they still lying to you?
Yes, because maps used to be made almost exclusively by governments, and governments always…
I mean, there are still more ways a map might not be accurate that we still have yet to
address.
Prime example: the borders.
And I don’t just mean in the sense that borders are made up lines that can’t be
seen from space (which isn’t 100% true, take India and Pakistan, for example), I mean
everyone’s favorite topic: disputed territories.
Since the two Koreas don’t recognize each-other as nations, when you ask the government based
in Seoul, Korea looks like this, but if you ask the government based in Pyongyang, it
looks like this.
There are numerous other examples of these as well, like with Kosovo, China’s disputed
territories, India’s disputed territories, Catalonia, the South China Sea, those islands
off of Maine and New Brunswick, South Tyrol, Crimea, that little knob in South Sudan, the
Aouzou Strip, Kashmir and Jammu, and of course let’s not forget everyone’s favorite screaming
ground.
Then of course, you could also get maps that are outdated, misinformed, biased, or even
just plain wrong.
Of course, statistics and data maps are very privy to being inaccurate or misleading, one
very notable example that I have used is this map of the spread of the Black Death throughout
Europe, which apparently seems to state that Poland was completely fine during the plague
(cue 3 seconds of Polish patriotism).
However, Poland wasn’t completely fine during the plague, it was just less affected than
other parts of Europe, same thing with Milan.
All in all, maps may be lying to you, but in reality, it’s actually so they can be
more truthful to you.
After all, if you wanted to know which countries are part of NATO, you don’t need their capitals,
largest cities, major rivers, monuments, railroads, highway systems, forests, etc.
I guess that’s not so much a lie, as just withholding information, but still, “lying”
makes for a more clickbait-y title.
You could also get maps that do away with topographical accuracy, and instead color
in all the countries in different colors, which can be fun to play around with if you’re
into math, like what my friend Jade explains on her channel, Up and Atom.
Actually the problem of how many colors it takes to color in a map was too hard for humans
to solve.
It was the first mathematical proof done by a computer.
I’ve covered the story and the proof over on my channel, so make sure to check it out
after this.
And even if you’re not into math and science, you’ll still love her channel, seriously,
she makes really good videos!
Oh, and the cartoons.
Don’t forget the cartoons she puts in!
As always, thank you for watching this video, and if you enjoyed it, please be sure to give
it a like, share it, and subscribe so you can learn something new every Sunday.
Oh, and check out Jade’s video, too.
In fact, subscribe to both our channels, if you’re not subscribed to either of us, let’s
be honest, what are you doing with your life?
Oh, and, also, see you on Sunday.