The Mercator world map, long a fixture in classrooms globally, makes the European Union appear almost as large as Africa. In reality, Africa is more than seven times bigger.

FILE - Soldiers look at a world map as they wait to board a flight in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on the way home after completing a deployment in Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/David Goldman, ...

Crisscrossed by rail-straight lines that correspond to constant compass bearings, the Mercator projection was ideal for navigation in the age of sail, at the expense of showing the actual size of ...

When the Boston Public School District recently decided to change what type of map it used, that move inspired a group of scientists to develop a brand new type of world map. They claim it is the most ...

Arthur H. Robinson, a geographer who improved on the venerable Mercator projection for drawing the round Earth on a flat map, has died at 89 in Madison, Wis. His Oct. 10 death, after a brief illness, ...

Arthur H. Robinson, a cartographer and geographer known for marrying art and science in his remarkable 1963 map of what has been called “the world as it really is,” has died. He was 89. Robinson died ...

Because the Earth is roughly spherical, every flat map distorts our planet one way or another. The most popular version is the Mercator projection, created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in ...

Advocacy groups in Africa have launched a campaign to replace the Mercator map, which distorts Africa's size by making it seem smaller DAKAR, Senegal -- On the Mercator projection, one of the world’s ...

On the Mercator projection, one of the world's most popular maps, Greenland and Africa appear to be about the same size. But on the Equal Earth projection showing continents in their true proportions, ...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — On the Mercator projection, one of the world’s most popular maps, Greenland and Africa appear to be about the same size. But on the Equal Earth projection showing continents in ...