Stop bullying the Mercator map

#Allmapsarebeautiful

Literally the first stock image that comes up when searching for “map.” Photo by Andrew Stutesman on Unsplash

Oh the Mercator map. Where would we be without you? That’s actually a literal question, not a rhetorical one. Because without the Mercator map, global European exploration would have been very different. Which, I guess could be interpreted as a good thing. No matter though because this article isn’t about European exploration and colonization, it’s about the raw deal that the Mercator map has gotten over the last few decades in map debate. Particularly map discourse online. Which means me, a geographer through and through, has to do something that I NEVER thought I would do:

I must defend the Mercator map.

But before I do that, let’s get some stuff out of the way. The first is that, under no circumstance am I making the assertion that the Mercator map is the best map (or map projection for my GIS buds out there). I’m also not going to suggest its the most realistic which it’s obviously not. I won’t even say that the Mercator map is a particularly beautiful map, though I do stand my my tag line hashtag (#allmapsarebeautiful). So, any Mercator-stans coming in and expecting a rousing 100/100 pro-Mercator argument is probably going to be disappointed.

That said, I do think it’s time we stop bullying the Mercator map and just let it live its life the way it was intended: to be one map projection to serve a specific purpose in a sea of map projections, each with their own purpose. Because if I have to hear one more right-of-passage-seeking geography fan/student/aficionado loudly and proudly proclaim the Mercator is a good for nothing, inaccurate, and horribly unfair map one more time… I’m going to lose it!

Sigh

So let’s get on with it.