The Peters projection map aims to minimize distortion of the Earth’s bodies. It was not invented by Arno Peters, but popularized by him. The map is useful for political purposes, but the Mercator projection is better for navigation. The controversy surrounding the Peters projection map began in 1974 due to issues of prejudice, colonialism, and racial issues. The map can be recognized by elongated continent shapes and roughly accurate area representations.
A Peters projection map is a map that attempts to draw features of the Earth with minimal distortion of area. Since the globe is a sphere and a map is flat, some distortion is inevitable, but Peters’ projection map works to present the earth’s bodies as accurately as possible. While cartography may not sound like a heated field, there was actually a major controversy surrounding Peters’ projection map when it was first revealed in 1974, and some controversy continues to this day. Although the Peters projection is not very popular, maps drawn in this technique can be found in some map shops or through specialist supply companies.
The first item of interest about Peters’ map is that although it is named after Dr. Arno Peters, Peters did not actually invent it. The credit for an accurate map of the area actually goes to a Scottish man, James Gall, who pioneered the idea in 1885. Gall’s map didn’t garner much public interest at the time, and the concept seemed relatively new and innovative as a result when it was reintroduced almost 100 years later by Dr. Arno Peters. This style of projection could more accurately be called a Gall-Peters projection, crediting the original inventor and the man who popularized it.
When Peters presented the accurate projection of area to the world, he framed the map in political terms. He argued that the extremely popular Mercator projection was biased because Mercator is not accurate for area. As a result, continents around the equator in a Mercator projection appear much smaller than regions far from the equator, such as Greenland. In a Mercator design, Greenland looks like a gigantic Africa, completely dwarfed, when in reality it is the other way around; Peters suggested that the difference in size made developing nations along the equator seem insignificant.
For navigational purposes, the Mercator projection is actually a far superior map. For political purposes, the Peters projection map is certainly useful, as it gives a more accurate representation of land area on Earth, although the continents are still quite distorted. In 1973, when Peters presented his map to the world, there was much discussion of prejudice, colonialism, and racial issues; as a result, the media and some academics took hold of Peters’ projection map as a more equitable way of representing the Earth.
You can recognize a Peters projection map by the elongated shapes of the continents and roughly accurate representations of area. For example, Greenland will be about 13 times smaller than Africa, as in real life. When looking at any map of the Earth, remember that some perspective will be lost when mapping the surface of a spherical object onto a rectangular piece of paper.
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