Maps & Mistakes

The Great Salt Lake

The Appalachian Salt Lake

The Pacific Ocean

The Hudson Sea

Here be gold.

Here be dragons.

Here be new lands.

Here be riches.

Trade routes and settlements.

The Earth's position in the cosmos.

Detailed coastlines and water sources.

Military strategies and battlefields.

Gerardus Mercator

Arno Peters

Ptolemy

Buckminster Fuller

The Da Ming Hunyi Tu

The Mercator Projection

The Tabula Rogeriana

The Piri Reis Map

They had explored the Southern Hemisphere extensively.

They believed the Earth needed to be symmetrical.

They had received reports from explorers about a southern continent.

They thought it was a source of valuable resources.

Early Spanish explorers confirmed it was an island.

A 1510 Spanish novel described it as an island.

Dutch pirates spread misinformation about its geography.

A royal decree mandated its depiction as an island.

It accurately represented the size of all landmasses.

It allowed curved navigational routes to appear as straight lines.

It minimized distortion across the entire world.

It showed the shortest route between any two points as a straight line.

Landmasses closest to the equator appear larger than they are.

Landmasses furthest from the equator appear smaller than they are.

Landmasses furthest from the equator appear larger than they are.

All landmasses are accurately represented in size.