You are a rare experience, a genuinely intelligent and well informed individual reacting without being an official "expert". I've seen you have insight on geography, history, science and just been a genuine breath of fresh air in the world of UA-cam reactors.
How one person can be so confident and informed about so many subjects without being pedantic or didactic is baffling. No stammering, no extended intros, no jump cuts, just casually dispensed, non-sensationalized information. Subbed.
Today’s public schools I’m guessing bypasses geography? I don’t know. But I do have a hunch that most teens have never unfolded a map amor had a globe.
@@Oi.... It used to be that way here in the US, too. When I was a kid back in the 70s I memorized all 50 states and their capitol cities. Plus many nations and their capitols. And I had a globe given to me by my parrents.
You are one of the most educated, thoughtful, but also entertaining reaction channels I have seen so far. Thank you for producing this quality content. I look forward to seeing more of you and will sub. I appreciate how you use you background knowledge but also eager to learn more about any topic.
I think most people in school learned with the Mercator projection map. I did. And a trusty globe that I had from when I was 4 years old, but broke right before I moved out.
The Mercator map is used because it shows the oceans most accurately rather than landmasses, and seeing how shipping and navigation is much more important than us simply finding precisely where we are on a world map that's why it's used.
This channel is great , 99% of reaction video channels are so annoying but you really are the exception! you always add great educational info and make the original video even more interesting . I'm glad i stumbled across this channel
Keep them coming as it's amazing to listen to you and amazing to look at you as well. I'm sure you get plenty of comments of that sort and they are well deserved.
If you're looking for a book about navigating the globe, there's always "Around the World in 80 Days", which I remember loving reading when I was a kid.
I'm from New Zealand, and I found that although it is relatively small, it's interesting how it's bigger than it seems. If you overlay it over Europe, it stretches from Helsinki, Finland to Budapest, Hungary; over North America it stretches from Jacksonville, FL to Toronto, Canada.
Love this channel. One of the few I have that has an intelligent person with interesting and challenging content, that expands my mind and teaches without talking down. Keep up the great work, and I will continue to watch and learn
Maps are fun, there are representative maps (like the world map) and grid maps (like those used by the military). Grid maps are supposed to be accurate so precise coordinates can be set. Also, topo maps are cool and have to be updated regularly because the landscape can be changed. Cool video young lady.
I like your mind and your knee! 😊 I like the Peter's projection but like you said, the Mercator is probably better for navigation because the shapes are more accurate. Interesting videos!
I've just stumbled across your channel by chance. Watched a load of videos and I'm really enjoying your content. Have subscribed and ring that bell. Can't wait for your next vid. 😁
This one looks to be a fascinating read about how it was a clock maker who solved this problem. Was also surprised to find out that it was turned into a 4 episode television series back in 2000.
This is more of a primary source manuscript, still technically a book on Portuguese navigation and cosmography, it's called "Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis" Also we learned in school with the Mercator Projection, but we had a globe aswell so we had a notion just how huge our navigation along Africa to India was, a 5-6 month voyage. And it wasn't easy sailing, the Cape of Good Hope was only named that way after we managed to cross it, it was first called by us Cape of Torments, as several of our exploration voyages suffered the destruction of a large portion of small armadas repelled by violent currents and raging winds that crashed and battered our ships against the Capes rocks.
The Mercator projection was devised because you can draw a straight line from A to B, then navigate by following a fixed heading. The path you follow won't be a straight line on the globe but much easier than the constant course adjustments that would entail. It was never intended to be a 'good' depiction of country sizes.
I started 1st grade in 1962, but I used to read National Geographic starting about 1958, yeah, actually reading although it took a couple years of reading before I fully understood most of what I would read. NG had maps galore, most were the Mercator type. But, I was lucky since I had a globe and my mother started showing me the differences the two maps depicted visually. It really helped me understand the distortion of the flat earth, lol. Back in the late 50's and early 60's you could get maps at almost any gas station for free. Off the newer Interstate highways you could get state maps that included multiple states or sections of the US as a whole for free. So even the kids of that time were often exposed to maps at an earlier age than I see now. Digital maps on digital devices is a different type of exposure since on the old paper maps, if the family were taking a vacation some of my classmates used to pencil in the routes their family took for comparison. When we moved from Indiana to California, we took the fairly new Interstate called Route 66 in 1962. It wasn't even 100% completed in all areas. Now I look at the decaying remains of the old highway and do get a bit of nostalgic feelings about it. A map's "Key" suddenly became more relevant to me during our move across the states. I believe it was in a map of the world insert in National Geographic at about the age of 4 or 5 I saw Antarctica spread across the whole bottom of the map and I became confused. I told my mother that National Geographic was wrong, they had to be wrong. That is when my mother showed me the distortion between the globe and the "flat" map and why it was that way. When she explained the longitude lines on the globe and how they get stretched out on a flat paper map, the the widths are distorted. She explained then that if we cut the globe from top to bottom on all of the longitude lines and tried to flatten out the globe, there would be huge gaps at the top and bottom that get smaller toward the equator. A map like that wouldn't be very easy to use or understand.
Literature tip: ""The Island of the Day Before" is not Umberto Eco's most enjoyed work, but it's defenitely spot on the subject and it still is by Eco.
greetings from Alaska. a very small amount has road access but there are villages throughout the state. Alaska has 88000 miles of coastline and the lower 48 has 95000 but thats mostly because of how structured and jagged the Alaska coast is
Hey! Wonderfully informed reaction. I highly recommend Jay Foreman and his Map Men series or his Unfinished London series. Both are entertaining histories of maps and London, respectively.
2:00 Alaska is 1,717,856 km² (or 663,268 sq mi) - which is about 18 % of the size of the entire USA - but only has a population of 736,081 (in 2020). Habitable....well actually most of it is habitable in theory. If you could move Alaska eastwards to Europe you'd land in Scandinavia, and if you move it even further you'd land in central Asia. The southern coast of Alaska is on the same latitude as Scotland. Canada is actually about 400,000 km² larger than China and also larger than the USA (Canada is the second largest country on earth after Russia, China is in third place and the USA in 4th). Brazil is the 5th largest and Australia comes at Nr. 6.
Weird maps if you are used to the Mercator versions, are Hobo-Dyer projection, Gall-Peters projection, Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection. And the weird one that we had in school that is the Winkel tripel projection.
Cool map games. Might want to point out the fact that Africa and South America seem to fit together is no accident. They were once joined together before the modern Atlantic ocean existed. Fossil and geological evidence proves the incredible reality. And shows that continents drift over geological timescales.
One thing we can all agree on is that England is the centre of the world. Three recommended books on sea voyages and navigation; all easily accessible to an intelligent general reader: 'Longitude' by Dava Sobel, an excellent tale of the solving of the greatest scientific problem of its time - how to accurately measure longitude; 'Barrow's Boys' by Fergus Fleming, a gripping tale of filling in the blanks on the map of 1816 and 'The Circumnavigators' by Derek Wilson about the pioneering voyages around the globe in the 16th Century.
The Mercator Projection was meant to be used for navigation, as it keeps distance ratios the same, but definitely not surface area. If you want an accurate rectangular map, see the Authagraph.
The TV show the West Wing had an episode where a group was trying to change the maps to what's called the Peter's Projection. I'm sure you can find a clip of it on youtube. it's a pretty interesting scene.
There's always something wrong with a map, either your're sacrificing shape, area or whatever the third thing that I forgot is. Every map also has it's use ... probably.
You nailed it! The Mercator is perfect for ocean-going navigation. It distorts land masses, but this doesn't matter at sea. It was critical to world trade and only went out of use in the 1990s with GPS and computerized mapping. Even in high latitudes, it's still 100% reliable for navigation. Criticizing the Mercator will earn you dirty looks from shippers, boaters, and yachtsmen.
My go-to site for making these points is 'mapfight' - mainly because it's easy for me to remember the name. . While these are enormous (and expensive) my favorite map-related books are David Wooward's epic 'The History of Cartography' series - especially 'Volume Three' - Parts 1&2. I am guessing you would also enjoy the history of the Prime Meridian - which from (2nd century's) Ptolemy's Geographia through about the time of Henry the Navigator ran through the Canary Islands (the western edge of the then-known world); then through various islands of the Azores (thought for awhile to be the best reference of magnetic north); then gradually through Paris, Rome, Brussels, Copenhagen, Rio, and even sometimes Washington DC - depending on which monarch or gov't was commissioning the map. [I have some maps showing latitude referenced to two different prime meridians on the same map] An 1884 international conference set it at Greenwich - Britain's navy got its way - which then thankfully also let the world establish one Int'l Date Line, at 180.degrees. You might enjoy reading about L J Waghenaer, a long-time ship's officer who's 'Mariner's mirror' included a lot of 'firsts' for a published book - depth soundings, coastline profiles as they would appear from a ship, etc. The Spanish reportedly used a copy of his pilot book in planning the 1588 Armada. Lastly, I think you really might appreciate Linschoten and his late-1500's book 'Itinerario', which became the roadmap for the Dutch supplanting Portuguese trade monopoly. L was a Dutch-born secretary to the ageing Portuguese Archibishop of Goa, and through his job had access to Portuguese navigation materials. When the old guy died, L published what would be his highly regarded book of trade routes and Portuguese fortifications - a big hit with the Dutch and English. OK, I'll stop here... for the moment.
Mercator's map became popular because a Navigator could sail directly to one angle measured off the map and that would take the ship to its destination.
Trying to map a globe on a flat surface is always a trade off. I believe it was Navigation (for sailors) that made the Mercator projection especially successful - as Lat/Long calculations work on it.
Books containing navigation at sea: Around the world in 80 days. Books about Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Marco Polo, Amerigo Vespucci, Francis Drake, James Cook, Hernán Cortés, and Ferdinand Magellan.
Back in the 80's and 90's in my country we had to use both the Mercator projection maps and the student globe. Past the year 2000, the student globe isn't required and became an item that even the schools themselves often don't have. The increase in numbers of flat earthers here correlates with the absence of the globe being required to be used in class.
The trick with the mercator map, and most things we use for reference, is that you have to learn how that it represents reality, but is not reality, so you need to know how to read the representation AND THEN translate into a picture of what really going on,
I live in Alaska. We have 780,000-ish people up here. Divide AK in two and Texas will be the 3rd largest state. Last year, there was a blizzard that lasted 3 days and dumped an estimated 85 feet of snow. But, as you mentioned, it was in an uninhabited part of the state.
Dunno if you've seen it: Dymaxion Projection. Buckminster Fuller is responsible for this monstrosity. Confusing as heck, and a nightmare for navigation, but does a pretty decent job of displaying the landmasses correctly (as much as possible in 2D).
Very interesting video! One bonus: the USA is one of the countries in the world who have matching rank for population & area: it is 3rd-largest in both population & area. I wonder how many other countries share this property of having the same rank for both population & land area. Vatican City/Holy See is last in both population & land area (unless you count Pitcairn Island as a country).
For appropriate reading, Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" comes to mind. (Pro-tip: recently a very nice tv mini series of this story was made.)
I concur with Mark MacGowan on the recommendation of "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time." It looks to be a fascinating read.
I think someone else mentioned it, but Longitude, by Dava Sobel is a very good read, concerns Harrison and his attempts to make a clock that woudl keep accurate time to allow better navigation.
a book I was fascinated by was The Phantom Atlas by Edward Brooke-Hitching. " an atlas of the world not as it ever existed, but as it was thought to be."
Mercator is indeed good for navigation, but it probably shouldn't be the standard classroom map, where size is probably more important. Have you seen any videos from the Map Men? They have some excellent stuff you might enjoy.
The Mercator projection is not wrong, it's the only map one can use with a compass and know directions. Using maps and compasses to find things on the oceans was the original purpose of maps.
Yeah it’s not that the Mercator is wrong, its just that for 99% of people that aren’t crossing the ocean there are many many other options. Peters projection was the one talked about on West Wing when they talked about this. I’m in GIS so I took a lot of classes on ways maps distort things, and there’s a lot- but there’s even more than the literal ways because of how human perception works, and we can even account for that accurately now. Maps are especially important to get more correct (for the circumstances) because humans on average are much more willing to accept facts presented on maps as true rather than say a white paper. Mercator is just especially egregious in it’s distortion of the global south and that it provides no tangible benefits that couldn’t be accounted for in other ways.
I miss physical globes; the ones with exaggerated relief for mountain ranges were cool. It's neat to see the paths of trans-oceanic flights on maps. Straight lines between point A & B look like long lazy curves. Have you tried Geoguesser? Basically google street view puts you at some random location around the globe and you get to guess where it is. It can be fun, a bit informative, and sometimes nostalgic. Oh yeah. Side thought, the interesting thing about projections, Mercator included, is that your projection can be centered to the map. So if you have a topological Mercator projection map for navigating somewhere in rural Alaska the projection could be centered to your map, thereby reducing the local distortions.
Just caught up on this video today! There is a book I´d like to recommend about the subject, it´s called "100 Days Between Sea And Sky", from a brazilian navigator called Amyr Klink (my compatriot!). It´s a real tale about one time in the middle of the 80s that he - the author - decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa... alone in a rowing boat (!!!). I´ve had this book since when I was a child, and absolutely love it. Check it out!
Edit: Book suggestion - relating to the "Dirt-y TikTok" and a little on how these huge or tiny nations ended up as they are: Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs & Steel". Incredible how much of this vast landscape we were able to trek across before we discovered the wheel, domesticated dogs or goats, even before we sowed our first grains. And now we drive 500 yards to the store..
When I was young, everyone had a globe. Now no one does. I'd love to have an electronic wireless one that can update the countries changing borders in real time.
@@NoProtocol Yes, me too. I got it as a birthday present from now past grandmother. I got it probably 30 years ago and there is it right now 2 meters away from where I'm sitting :).
Finnish view on this: while we look big on the map, we never considered us as big. There are few reasons and one is that the way everyone has talked about us, internally, it is always being that we are small. It is everywhere, in poetry, in national songs... The self image has always been that we are small so while we also use Mercator projection, and can't remember that we were taught that it is wrong, seeing a globe once combined with that "national identity" of being a small country made it easy to internalize. The only real surprises i remember that i learned much later are the size of Russia and Greenland, and Antarctica. Those don't translate well even on a globe, Russia is just large enough that the globe shape starts distorting it and it is harder to compare. European countries are super simple, they all fit in that viewpoint that it is not distorted, and the Nordic countries sizes are easily noticeable. Also, the distance from Sicily to Helsinki is about exactly the distance of US east coast. And then there is still Finland, that is 1500km more, so Europe is not that small. The mainland Europe is but when you add the rest of it, it is often thought as being smaller than it is. The whole of Europe consists also half of Russia, to the Ural mountains. Politically and more and more culturally Europe is now "to the Russian border", which is why Eastern Europe is to the west of Russia... And EU is of course even smaller but if Ukraine is accepted then the cultural&political Europe and EU are almost the same thing.
Still have a globe, an actual spinning globe accurately representing the earth as it is in 3D. Can't hang it on a wall and bigger than a book but no chance for distortion of size, distance, perspective or scale :)
I've seen videos like that one, but I don't believe I've seen that particular one. It's a very interesting, but it's a bit confusing the way it keeps almost everything within the Mercator projection. It would have been nice if he had shown the globe much more, so as to better get away from the size distortions.
went through Wyoming a couple years ago, its mostly just land. there is nothing out there unless you go to one of the few large cities. went out there with a construction crew and i thought we were going to run out of gas just because there is hardly any gas stations out there.
Just discovered you, your reactions are great, like people just starting like this I don't see them often for example, and you seem invested and interested too x) Sub
The mercator projection doesn't preserve shape well at all above/below 45deg north and south just look at Canada or Russia on a globe, the further north is massively narrower then on the mercator projection.
Alaska, habitable lot of it is. Just look at the natives living at the northern coast. Also, those living off grid. Above the artic circle, or in norhern parts in general, there is quite some ppl living that far north, all around the world. Or all around.. Russia, Norway, Canada, Greenland, Iceland and US, Alaska. Russian ciy Murmansk is the bigger city if the North, where over 300 000 lives, Living far north, really depens on the person, really, and the will to live there. I live in Norway, though in Oslo, its still cold in winter. But i love the winter, also outdoors. Sleeping outside in the winter is special.
He was comparing Japan to the east coast, whats funny is Japan and the east coast fall within the same latitudes and their capital cities fall within a few degrees latitude of each other. DC at 38 Lat and Tokyo at 35 lat. idk just random stuff I figured out 🤷♂️
The fact I found surprising is that there a location in contiguous Canada further south than part of the USA. A point in Ontario at the Great Lakes extends more south than the Oregon / California border. I first heard of this regarding a pilot betting that a part of Canada is further south than northern California... and won that bet.😁
My school had a Robertson projection map and a Goode's homolosine (the one with cutouts). But the textbooks had Mercator. Plus a globe. So I always knew Greenland was not that big, are there really people who do not understand what the mercator does to scale?
You are a rare experience, a genuinely intelligent and well informed individual reacting without being an official "expert". I've seen you have insight on geography, history, science and just been a genuine breath of fresh air in the world of UA-cam reactors.
She must be from outside the cities , especially VERY far away from the filth of LA and NY...
And she's drop dead gorgeous!
My favourite intelligent reactor
Yup. I subbed after one video... she seems so well rounded in her knowledge already. Her approach to learning/understanding is kinda... 🔥
So far the only intelligent reactor I've encountered 🤔
Just discovered. Had to subscribe. 😀
Underrated comment
@@robertcampomizzi7988same
How one person can be so confident and informed about so many subjects without being pedantic or didactic is baffling. No stammering, no extended intros, no jump cuts, just casually dispensed, non-sensationalized information. Subbed.
Everyone should be given a globe as a child. It gives you such a better perspective and understanding about the world we all share.
Or give them a plate, depending on if the parents are flat earthers.
Today’s public schools I’m guessing bypasses geography? I don’t know. But I do have a hunch that most teens have never unfolded a map amor had a globe.
@@Pineoilheavan no need for that when you can have Google maps tell you how to get to the nearest vape shop.
@alw4ysblu3 school no longer teaches geography slick
@@Oi.... It used to be that way here in the US, too. When I was a kid back in the 70s I memorized all 50 states and their capitol cities. Plus many nations and their capitols. And I had a globe given to me by my parrents.
You are one of the most educated, thoughtful, but also entertaining reaction channels I have seen so far. Thank you for producing this quality content. I look forward to seeing more of you and will sub. I appreciate how you use you background knowledge but also eager to learn more about any topic.
I think most people in school learned with the Mercator projection map. I did. And a trusty globe that I had from when I was 4 years old, but broke right before I moved out.
Most people I know learned with Mercator projection as well! I’m curious to see if anyone had a different experience
@@NoProtocol I'm African so I don't think I neccessarily learn't it, was pleasently surprised to learn how big Africa really is
@@NoProtocol In Russia and the countries of the former USSR, maps with a different projection where the dimensions are almost correctly shown.
The Mercator map is used because it shows the oceans most accurately rather than landmasses, and seeing how shipping and navigation is much more important than us simply finding precisely where we are on a world map that's why it's used.
This channel is great , 99% of reaction video channels are so annoying but you really are the exception! you always add great educational info and make the original video even more interesting . I'm glad i stumbled across this channel
Keep them coming as it's amazing to listen to you and amazing to look at you as well. I'm sure you get plenty of comments of that sort and they are well deserved.
If you're looking for a book about navigating the globe, there's always "Around the World in 80 Days", which I remember loving reading when I was a kid.
Oh I maybe read that one time and I have Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon
Also, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Keep a globe or atlas handy while reading that one. It comes in handy.
Yes was going to suggest the this one!
I'm from New Zealand, and I found that although it is relatively small, it's interesting how it's bigger than it seems. If you overlay it over Europe, it stretches from Helsinki, Finland to Budapest, Hungary; over North America it stretches from Jacksonville, FL to Toronto, Canada.
Same here, the Sahara and Africa thing blew my mind. I knew it was large and that maps shrink it a bit but seriously that's nuts.
Love your content and variety of topics!
Thanks, I’m having fun (:
Love this channel. One of the few I have that has an intelligent person with interesting and challenging content, that expands my mind and teaches without talking down. Keep up the great work, and I will continue to watch and learn
The Sahara is massive and a primary reason that Sub-Saharan Africa was mostly left alone by the conquering empires of the ancient world.
Maps are fun, there are representative maps (like the world map) and grid maps (like those used by the military). Grid maps are supposed to be accurate so precise coordinates can be set. Also, topo maps are cool and have to be updated regularly because the landscape can be changed. Cool video young lady.
Instant like with the instant start. Great reaction!
I'm glad my parents bought me a globe when I was a kid.
I like your mind and your knee! 😊
I like the Peter's projection but like you said, the Mercator is probably better for navigation because the shapes are more accurate.
Interesting videos!
I've just stumbled across your channel by chance. Watched a load of videos and I'm really enjoying your content. Have subscribed and ring that bell. Can't wait for your next vid. 😁
Very interesting. Love your channel. It's about real stuff!
I'd recommend Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. A super interesting read.
This one looks to be a fascinating read about how it was a clock maker who solved this problem. Was also surprised to find out that it was turned into a 4 episode television series back in 2000.
In addition to a long list of other things I enjoy about your content, I want to say thank you for not subjecting us to lengthy intros.
This is more of a primary source manuscript, still technically a book on Portuguese navigation and cosmography, it's called "Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis"
Also we learned in school with the Mercator Projection, but we had a globe aswell so we had a notion just how huge our navigation along Africa to India was, a 5-6 month voyage.
And it wasn't easy sailing, the Cape of Good Hope was only named that way after we managed to cross it, it was first called by us Cape of Torments, as several of our exploration voyages suffered the destruction of a large portion of small armadas repelled by violent currents and raging winds that crashed and battered our ships against the Capes rocks.
The Mercator projection was devised because you can draw a straight line from A to B, then navigate by following a fixed heading. The path you follow won't be a straight line on the globe but much easier than the constant course adjustments that would entail. It was never intended to be a 'good' depiction of country sizes.
I started 1st grade in 1962, but I used to read National Geographic starting about 1958, yeah, actually reading although it took a couple years of reading before I fully understood most of what I would read. NG had maps galore, most were the Mercator type. But, I was lucky since I had a globe and my mother started showing me the differences the two maps depicted visually. It really helped me understand the distortion of the flat earth, lol.
Back in the late 50's and early 60's you could get maps at almost any gas station for free. Off the newer Interstate highways you could get state maps that included multiple states or sections of the US as a whole for free. So even the kids of that time were often exposed to maps at an earlier age than I see now. Digital maps on digital devices is a different type of exposure since on the old paper maps, if the family were taking a vacation some of my classmates used to pencil in the routes their family took for comparison. When we moved from Indiana to California, we took the fairly new Interstate called Route 66 in 1962. It wasn't even 100% completed in all areas. Now I look at the decaying remains of the old highway and do get a bit of nostalgic feelings about it. A map's "Key" suddenly became more relevant to me during our move across the states.
I believe it was in a map of the world insert in National Geographic at about the age of 4 or 5 I saw Antarctica spread across the whole bottom of the map and I became confused. I told my mother that National Geographic was wrong, they had to be wrong. That is when my mother showed me the distortion between the globe and the "flat" map and why it was that way. When she explained the longitude lines on the globe and how they get stretched out on a flat paper map, the the widths are distorted. She explained then that if we cut the globe from top to bottom on all of the longitude lines and tried to flatten out the globe, there would be huge gaps at the top and bottom that get smaller toward the equator. A map like that wouldn't be very easy to use or understand.
Literature tip: ""The Island of the Day Before" is not Umberto Eco's most enjoyed work, but it's defenitely spot on the subject and it still is by Eco.
Another fantastic video! This makes me want to travel again (we last did a baby moon and traveled through Europe in 2018).. Have a great weekend!
Have a great weekend as well Tom!!
greetings from Alaska. a very small amount has road access but there are villages throughout the state. Alaska has 88000 miles of coastline and the lower 48 has 95000 but thats mostly because of how structured and jagged the Alaska coast is
Hey! Wonderfully informed reaction. I highly recommend Jay Foreman and his Map Men series or his Unfinished London series. Both are entertaining histories of maps and London, respectively.
2:00 Alaska is 1,717,856 km² (or 663,268 sq mi) - which is about 18 % of the size of the entire USA - but only has a population of 736,081 (in 2020). Habitable....well actually most of it is habitable in theory. If you could move Alaska eastwards to Europe you'd land in Scandinavia, and if you move it even further you'd land in central Asia. The southern coast of Alaska is on the same latitude as Scotland.
Canada is actually about 400,000 km² larger than China and also larger than the USA (Canada is the second largest country on earth after Russia, China is in third place and the USA in 4th). Brazil is the 5th largest and Australia comes at Nr. 6.
Weird maps if you are used to the Mercator versions, are Hobo-Dyer projection, Gall-Peters projection, Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection. And the weird one that we had in school that is the Winkel tripel projection.
Cool map games. Might want to point out the fact that Africa and South America seem to fit together is no accident. They were once joined together before the modern Atlantic ocean existed. Fossil and geological evidence proves the incredible reality. And shows that continents drift over geological timescales.
One thing we can all agree on is that England is the centre of the world.
Three recommended books on sea voyages and navigation; all easily accessible to an intelligent general reader: 'Longitude' by Dava Sobel, an excellent tale of the solving of the greatest scientific problem of its time - how to accurately measure longitude; 'Barrow's Boys' by Fergus Fleming, a gripping tale of filling in the blanks on the map of 1816 and 'The Circumnavigators' by Derek Wilson about the pioneering voyages around the globe in the 16th Century.
The Mercator Projection was meant to be used for navigation, as it keeps distance ratios the same, but definitely not surface area. If you want an accurate rectangular map, see the Authagraph.
For Non-fiction- A Voyage For Madmen - Peter Nichols
For Diction - Treasure Island - RLS
The TV show the West Wing had an episode where a group was trying to change the maps to what's called the Peter's Projection. I'm sure you can find a clip of it on youtube. it's a pretty interesting scene.
Great reaction there bud!
Thanks bud
There's always something wrong with a map, either your're sacrificing shape, area or whatever the third thing that I forgot is. Every map also has it's use ... probably.
You nailed it! The Mercator is perfect for ocean-going navigation. It distorts land masses, but this doesn't matter at sea. It was critical to world trade and only went out of use in the 1990s with GPS and computerized mapping. Even in high latitudes, it's still 100% reliable for navigation. Criticizing the Mercator will earn you dirty looks from shippers, boaters, and yachtsmen.
My go-to site for making these points is 'mapfight' - mainly because it's easy for me to remember the name. . While these are enormous (and expensive) my favorite map-related books are David Wooward's epic 'The History of Cartography' series - especially 'Volume Three' - Parts 1&2.
I am guessing you would also enjoy the history of the Prime Meridian - which from (2nd century's) Ptolemy's Geographia through about the time of Henry the Navigator ran through the Canary Islands (the western edge of the then-known world); then through various islands of the Azores (thought for awhile to be the best reference of magnetic north); then gradually through Paris, Rome, Brussels, Copenhagen, Rio, and even sometimes Washington DC - depending on which monarch or gov't was commissioning the map. [I have some maps showing latitude referenced to two different prime meridians on the same map] An 1884 international conference set it at Greenwich - Britain's navy got its way - which then thankfully also let the world establish one Int'l Date Line, at 180.degrees.
You might enjoy reading about L J Waghenaer, a long-time ship's officer who's 'Mariner's mirror' included a lot of 'firsts' for a published book - depth soundings, coastline profiles as they would appear from a ship, etc. The Spanish reportedly used a copy of his pilot book in planning the 1588 Armada.
Lastly, I think you really might appreciate Linschoten and his late-1500's book 'Itinerario', which became the roadmap for the Dutch supplanting Portuguese trade monopoly. L was a Dutch-born secretary to the ageing Portuguese Archibishop of Goa, and through his job had access to Portuguese navigation materials. When the old guy died, L published what would be his highly regarded book of trade routes and Portuguese fortifications - a big hit with the Dutch and English.
OK, I'll stop here... for the moment.
Mercator's map became popular because a Navigator could sail directly to one angle measured off the map and that would take the ship to its destination.
Trying to map a globe on a flat surface is always a trade off. I believe it was Navigation (for sailors) that made the Mercator projection especially successful - as Lat/Long calculations work on it.
Books containing navigation at sea:
Around the world in 80 days.
Books about Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Marco Polo, Amerigo Vespucci, Francis Drake, James Cook, Hernán Cortés, and Ferdinand Magellan.
Back in the 80's and 90's in my country we had to use both the Mercator projection maps and the student globe. Past the year 2000, the student globe isn't required and became an item that even the schools themselves often don't have. The increase in numbers of flat earthers here correlates with the absence of the globe being required to be used in class.
Dava Sobel wrote the book Longitude, which i think is what you're looking for at around 8:00
I read it some years ago and i highly recommend it.
Ya heard it here folks, size does matter 😂
The trick with the mercator map, and most things we use for reference, is that you have to learn how that it represents reality, but is not reality, so you need to know how to read the representation AND THEN translate into a picture of what really going on,
The Mercator distorts size and shape -- it is only 'accurate' at showing relative longitude (and non-polar navigation)
A tilted globe is what I learned from..and other maps but a globe seems to be the most accurate in all my adventures
As always a fun watch :)
Mercator's projection is a map of directions not of areas. It shows the direction to travel between two places on the globe, not how far it is.
I live in Alaska. We have 780,000-ish people up here. Divide AK in two and Texas will be the 3rd largest state.
Last year, there was a blizzard that lasted 3 days and dumped an estimated 85 feet of snow. But, as you mentioned, it was in an uninhabited part of the state.
Wow, 85 feet of snow is no joke
@@NoProtocol As no one lives there, there are no weather stations to give hard numbers, but the scientists can make pretty accurate estimations.
7:10 Wait, does it? Which size are you really talking about?
Dunno if you've seen it: Dymaxion Projection. Buckminster Fuller is responsible for this monstrosity. Confusing as heck, and a nightmare for navigation, but does a pretty decent job of displaying the landmasses correctly (as much as possible in 2D).
How about the short story, "He Who Shrank", by Henry Hasse. It's about traveling, and about 'scale', among other strange experiences of size. ;-)
My favourite size comparison is that Australia is the same width as the moon
Very interesting video! One bonus: the USA is one of the countries in the world who have matching rank for population & area: it is 3rd-largest in both population & area. I wonder how many other countries share this property of having the same rank for both population & land area. Vatican City/Holy See is last in both population & land area (unless you count Pitcairn Island as a country).
For appropriate reading, Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" comes to mind. (Pro-tip: recently a very nice tv mini series of this story was made.)
When I moved to Wyoming there were more antelope than people . Your channel is awesome and you are a great host
I had heard the Mercator map was used mostly by sailors, as it made navigation much easier.
I concur with Mark MacGowan on the recommendation of "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time." It looks to be a fascinating read.
I think someone else mentioned it, but Longitude, by Dava Sobel is a very good read, concerns Harrison and his attempts to make a clock that woudl keep accurate time to allow better navigation.
I would totally recommend you the fiction book "Cold Skin", very interesting one if you try to understand the hidden meanings.
a book I was fascinated by was The Phantom Atlas by Edward Brooke-Hitching.
" an atlas of the world not as it ever existed, but as it was thought to be."
Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne is about travelling the globe, and with a surprising realization in the end. Btw - you are a star!
Mercator is indeed good for navigation, but it probably shouldn't be the standard classroom map, where size is probably more important.
Have you seen any videos from the Map Men? They have some excellent stuff you might enjoy.
The Mercator projection is not wrong, it's the only map one can use with a compass and know directions. Using maps and compasses to find things on the oceans was the original purpose of maps.
Wyoming sounds like my kind of place, all that area and so few people. The Mercator Projection was the standard in UK schools
Yes, the area per person ratio sounds very good
Yeah it’s not that the Mercator is wrong, its just that for 99% of people that aren’t crossing the ocean there are many many other options. Peters projection was the one talked about on West Wing when they talked about this.
I’m in GIS so I took a lot of classes on ways maps distort things, and there’s a lot- but there’s even more than the literal ways because of how human perception works, and we can even account for that accurately now. Maps are especially important to get more correct (for the circumstances) because humans on average are much more willing to accept facts presented on maps as true rather than say a white paper. Mercator is just especially egregious in it’s distortion of the global south and that it provides no tangible benefits that couldn’t be accounted for in other ways.
I miss physical globes; the ones with exaggerated relief for mountain ranges were cool.
It's neat to see the paths of trans-oceanic flights on maps. Straight lines between point A & B look like long lazy curves.
Have you tried Geoguesser? Basically google street view puts you at some random location around the globe and you get to guess where it is. It can be fun, a bit informative, and sometimes nostalgic.
Oh yeah. Side thought, the interesting thing about projections, Mercator included, is that your projection can be centered to the map. So if you have a topological Mercator projection map for navigating somewhere in rural Alaska the projection could be centered to your map, thereby reducing the local distortions.
I’ve never heard of Geoguesser but I’m about to look right now!
Just caught up on this video today! There is a book I´d like to recommend about the subject, it´s called "100 Days Between Sea And Sky", from a brazilian navigator called Amyr Klink (my compatriot!). It´s a real tale about one time in the middle of the 80s that he - the author - decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Africa... alone in a rowing boat (!!!). I´ve had this book since when I was a child, and absolutely love it. Check it out!
Perhaps Plate Techtonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of The Earth by Naomi Oreskies
I've been led to believe, by a friend in Brisbane, that the Outback is actually bigger than the whole of Australia... 😛
Edit: Book suggestion - relating to the "Dirt-y TikTok" and a little on how these huge or tiny nations ended up as they are: Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs & Steel".
Incredible how much of this vast landscape we were able to trek across before we discovered the wheel, domesticated dogs or goats, even before we sowed our first grains. And now we drive 500 yards to the store..
For a free geography intro you have the channel geography now
3:57 really hope he meant Oceania
4:01 missing Spain, Iceland, Fennoscandia and European Russia
Wyoming “ the drive thru please” state. The only place I have been with no tourist information booths at the border
When I was young, everyone had a globe. Now no one does. I'd love to have an electronic wireless one that can update the countries changing borders in real time.
I still have a globe, thankfully
@@NoProtocol Yes, me too. I got it as a birthday present from now past grandmother. I got it probably 30 years ago and there is it right now 2 meters away from where I'm sitting :).
Finnish view on this: while we look big on the map, we never considered us as big. There are few reasons and one is that the way everyone has talked about us, internally, it is always being that we are small. It is everywhere, in poetry, in national songs... The self image has always been that we are small so while we also use Mercator projection, and can't remember that we were taught that it is wrong, seeing a globe once combined with that "national identity" of being a small country made it easy to internalize.
The only real surprises i remember that i learned much later are the size of Russia and Greenland, and Antarctica. Those don't translate well even on a globe, Russia is just large enough that the globe shape starts distorting it and it is harder to compare. European countries are super simple, they all fit in that viewpoint that it is not distorted, and the Nordic countries sizes are easily noticeable.
Also, the distance from Sicily to Helsinki is about exactly the distance of US east coast. And then there is still Finland, that is 1500km more, so Europe is not that small. The mainland Europe is but when you add the rest of it, it is often thought as being smaller than it is. The whole of Europe consists also half of Russia, to the Ural mountains. Politically and more and more culturally Europe is now "to the Russian border", which is why Eastern Europe is to the west of Russia... And EU is of course even smaller but if Ukraine is accepted then the cultural&political Europe and EU are almost the same thing.
Best. Intro. On. UA-cam. 😂🔥
Still have a globe, an actual spinning globe accurately representing the earth as it is in 3D. Can't hang it on a wall and bigger than a book but no chance for distortion of size, distance, perspective or scale :)
I've seen videos like that one, but I don't believe I've seen that particular one. It's a very interesting, but it's a bit confusing the way it keeps almost everything within the Mercator projection. It would have been nice if he had shown the globe much more, so as to better get away from the size distortions.
went through Wyoming a couple years ago, its mostly just land. there is nothing out there unless you go to one of the few large cities. went out there with a construction crew and i thought we were going to run out of gas just because there is hardly any gas stations out there.
That last part actually sounds a bit stressful Dan haha was it beautiful at least?
@@NoProtocol actually yes, some of the areas we drove through had mountains, had to stop at certain places and take pictures.
Most people don't know how the Peter's map really is. I only found out about it 4 or 5 years ago. It depicts the world more correctly
The mercator projection is more "accurate" for the mid latitudes, where most people live, which is why you see it so much.
Yup, it definitely serves its purpose
I wonder if they compensated for the fact that the map is distorted when placing countries on top of others
I LOVE your sweater, where did you get it? I want one like that haha
I think at least half the population of Alaska lives in Anchorage. Anchorage has about 360,000 people.
Wow! Not very many people at all
Just discovered you, your reactions are great, like people just starting like this I don't see them often for example, and you seem invested and interested too x) Sub
Really want to watch the Great Britain = Westeros video now to see if Westeros is bigger or smaller.
The mercator projection doesn't preserve shape well at all above/below 45deg north and south just look at Canada or Russia on a globe, the further north is massively narrower then on the mercator projection.
Also I'm very aware it's not historically accurate but as a piece of art I think it's pretty amazing
Wilderness is for wildlife aka the uncivilized, it is very habitable as that how all our ancestors used to live before the Industrial Revolution.
Wyoming only has 584309 people? I'm in england in a tiny place around 60 square miles and we have around 320,000 people here
Alaska, habitable lot of it is. Just look at the natives living at the northern coast. Also, those living off grid. Above the artic circle, or in norhern parts in general, there is quite some ppl living that far north, all around the world. Or all around.. Russia, Norway, Canada, Greenland, Iceland and US, Alaska. Russian ciy Murmansk is the bigger city if the North, where over 300 000 lives,
Living far north, really depens on the person, really, and the will to live there. I live in Norway, though in Oslo, its still cold in winter. But i love the winter, also outdoors. Sleeping outside in the winter is special.
In school we used Mercator - in 1966 to 1976 - lol
He was comparing Japan to the east coast, whats funny is Japan and the east coast fall within the same latitudes and their capital cities fall within a few degrees latitude of each other. DC at 38 Lat and Tokyo at 35 lat. idk just random stuff I figured out 🤷♂️
The fact I found surprising is that there a location in contiguous Canada further south than part of the USA. A point in Ontario at the Great Lakes extends more south than the Oregon / California border. I first heard of this regarding a pilot betting that a part of Canada is further south than northern California... and won that bet.😁
My school had a Robertson projection map and a Goode's homolosine (the one with cutouts). But the textbooks had Mercator. Plus a globe. So I always knew Greenland was not that big, are there really people who do not understand what the mercator does to scale?
Quite probably. I knew that Mercator isn't accurate, but hadn't grasped just how far off it was until I flew across Brazil the first time.