The world map is familiar sight on classroom walls and in atlases, but in terms of country and continent size, it’s way off – and all because of a 16th-century projection.

Have you ever looked at a world map and wondered why some countries seem much larger than others, even though that doesn't match the real world? Well, that’s because the map you're used to is likely ...

Most of us grew up looking at world maps that dramatically distorted the actual size of countries, and we had no idea. In this eye-opening video, we reveal the truth about how big (or small) countries ...

The map, observers pointed out, was only distorted differently: Where the Mercator projection makes areas near the poles appear much larger, the Peters projection relatively represents accurate ...

Named after Gerardus Mercator, the Flemish geographer who designed this map in the 16th century, this projection shows meridians as parallel lines, which made the picture simple to display on ...

Many of the maps we use today are based on a solution created by Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish geographer. In 1569 he drew a world map, what's become known as the Mercator projection.

My 21st year teaching, but first year teaching history. To treat myself, I bought two beautiful maps for my classroom: USA and the classic Mercator projection world map.

It’s massive.’ That should be part of the United States.” Yet many commentators have pointed out what any true map-lover knows: Greenland is not actually as big as it appears on most maps.

Peters’s position was that the Mercator Projection—a cylindrical projection first developed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator—was not only inaccurate, but downright racist.