Click here for the current raster version of this map (556 KB); and click here for an explanation of what raster means. Depending upon your software, you may need to resize the image to fit on one page. At 300 DPI, the scale is 1:85 million, but the map will serve equally well at whatever scale you choose. The same map is also available with south at the top. I have also posted an SVG version, which is super high-resolution, but caution! It is 4.9 MB, and it can only be opened with software which handles Scalable Vector Graphics files. Web browsers such as Mozilla/Netscape and Safari can open it VERY slowly, but they can only display and print the file, not modify it. To modify the file for your own purposes, use free, open-source software such as Inkscape or commercial applications such as Adobe Illustrator.
May 1, 2006: Happy International Workers Day! Blessings upon all workers, especially immigrant workers, and most especially immigrant workers who are denied citizenship and rights in the countries where they work! Remember: anti-immigration laws are the used today as the means to enslave vulnerable migrants. Withholding passports and threats of deportation are used to force women into prostitution, and adults and children into unpaid work. Please consider the ethics of this situation as Abolitionists did 150 years ago.
I have copylefted this map per the GNU Free Documentation License (GPL).
As the creator of this map, you should know that I dicourage its use by:
1. People who make abusive profit off of the efforts of others, especially when
paying them less than a living wage.
2. Fundamentalists of any persuasion (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Neoliberal,
Communist, Fascist).
3. Anyone who disparages science by disparaging the Darwin-Wallace theory of
species evolution. Evolutionary theory is indeed a theory, it is not Truth.
Insisting that a theory is invalid because it is not Truth is a cynical tactic
to discourage students from questioning, from doubting, from seeking and testing
explanations to complex issues.
We honor Creation by encouraging questioning, independent thought, and ethical discernment. I dedicate this map to those who encourage their students to think independently, especially those who encourage challenging of their own views. We learn from young and old alike, from poor and rich, and especially from those who are not like us.
Why another world projection?
1. Utility. This one is designed to print at 300 dpi on either letter or A4 standard paper.
2. Trustworthiness. Most projections grossly distort area (i.e. Africa looks small, Greenland looks huge). Others, which are equal-area, distort the shape of continents or arrange them in a disorieting layout for most users.
3. Legibility. The land areas are arranged to maximize their size on the printed page. Thus a letter-sized printout is large enough to show the subdivisions of federally-organized countries and China, whose subdivisions vary in autonomy. I also included the subdivisions of Sudan because the south may become independent and because we should know the size and location of Darfur. If I have missed showing the subdivisions of any other federally-organized countries, please email me at pietro at calogero dot us (replace "at" and "dot" to make the address).
To make all the land areas equal-scale and accurately-shaped:
A. Each region is projected on a separate Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area projection centered on that specific region. At the edges, shapes do get distorted somewhat. The maximum distortion is the Hawai'ian archipelago, visible in the upper right-hand corner.
B. Contiguous inhabited regions are splined together, but the oceans are completely broken apart and omitted, except for the Oceania region of the Pacific.
The countries and water-bodies are left unlabeled both to make the map general-purpose and to provoke thinking. For instance, which islands are omitted from this projection? Which continent is not shown? What trade-offs did I make in this design? Hold this map next to a globe of the world which shows physiography. Think of it as a selective piece of representation. What does it conceal? What does it distort? What other questions does it raise for you?
