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Greenland Is No Longer Larger Than Africa As Google Maps Drops Mercator Projections
Swarajya Staff
Aug 07, 2018, 09:11 PM | Updated 09:11 PM IST
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In what could probably be seen as a tech giant trolling proponents of flat-earth theories, Google has updated its Maps platform to drop the earlier Mercator maps in favour of three-dimensional globe. This means, Greenland will no longer appear larger than Africa when a user zooms out completely on the app.
The Mountain View, California-based company announced this on Twitter
The earlier Mercator projection allowed for easier representation on a two-dimensional plane, but resulted in factual inaccuracies regarding the area of landmasses. Due to the map’s “stretched-out” nature, areas near the poles appeared larger than they should be while areas near the equator appeared fine.
Thus, Greenland, which is times smaller than Africa would appear larger, a phenomenon that was shared by Scandinavian nations as well owing to their location.
An employee of Google revealed online that Mercator projections were used to road angles in higher latitudes, reports Mint.
Google’s other mapping platform, Google Earth, however has always provided 3D maps.
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