Gall--Peters Projection

2.5M views · 16 years ago · other · evergreen

A scene from the TV drama The West Wing in which advocates of the Gall-Peters projection take on the familiar Mercator map. It shows how map projections distort the size and position of countries.

HN keeps reaching for it as the quickest, most memorable way to teach how classic world maps misrepresent reality.

“The West Wing clip on maps is still one of the best ways to teach someone about how different our classic maps are from reality”

18 comments from Hacker News

e
@eyelidlessness2020 · in “The True Size Of Countries: Mercator projection”
Requisite West Wing scene[1] on the subject (which is probably always going to be my top YouTube search because it’s fantastic). [1]: ▶ this video
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r
@rivetfasten2025 · in “This map is not upside down”
The West Wing has such a good clip about this: ▶ this video
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b
@brianshaler2024 · in “A flat map with the least error possible: The Gott-Goldberg-Vanderbei projection”
I made an interactive WebGL implementation of this without realizing it was a thing: link I don't really agree with the claims in the articles linked in OP, and don't find it to be a generally useful projection, even for the tool I made using it. It was novel as a representation that included daylight context (instead of just "what time is it there?" it helped express "is it getting dark there?") that preserved area better than a globe and was more intuitive than a day/night waveform on a rectilinear projection. But ultimately, if you're showing anything that has to do with populations (cities, people) pretty much any projection will waste large amounts of space on oceans and unpopulated land regions. That is to say, before choosing a favorite map projection, I think it's probably better to not to use a map projection at all unless you're going for a hike or setting sail. Somebody beat me to the obligatory xkcd, but this West Wing bit is my go-to for map projection discussions: ▶ this video I like framing map projections by what they prioritize or sacrifice—fidelity in axis, position, size—and what projection is "best" depends entirely on which characteristics are more important. I disagree with OP's claim about this projection being "the most accurate flat map of the Earth yet" though haven't put a ton of thought into the physical, back-to-back definition of "flat" vs on-screen.
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A
@Amorymeltzer2015 · in “The last unmapped places on Earth”
The West Wing clip on maps is still one of the best ways to teach someone about how different our classic maps are from reality: ▶ this video
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C
@ColinWright2015 · in “The Gall--Peters Projection, Explanation Curtesy of the West Wing”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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d
@divideby02015 · in “Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S”
There's a great scene from the West Wing about this: ▶ this video
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f
@filereaper2015 · in “Why Mercator for the Web?”
The West Wing did a really good clip on what's wrong with the Mercator Projection. ▶ this video
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t
@techterrier2026 · in “MapLibre Tile: a modern and efficient vector tile format”
obligatory West Wing: ▶ this video
s
@skylurk2025 · in “Equal Earth – Political Wall Map (2018)”
mandatory Gall–Peters clip: ▶ this video
V
@Vagantem2025 · in “The True Size Of”
Gall Peters Projection scene (From "The West Wing" S2E16) ▶ this video
n
@nox1012024 · in “A flat map with the least error possible: The Gott-Goldberg-Vanderbei projection”
And West Wing: ▶ this video
g
@greggman32021 · in “Reimagining projections for the interactive maps era”
obligatory link to West Wing scene where they point out the political implications of the mercator projection ▶ this video