On Sunday Tom Patterson announced that the Equal Earth Physical Map is now available for download in JPEG, Illustrator and GeoTIF formats. Unlike its political counterpart, no territorial boundaries appear on this map (though cities do). Not having borders doesn’t mean that Tom and his collaborators won’t get into trouble with the names of natural features, though: I note they use Sea of Japan rather than East Sea, for example (see above). But, importantly, they’ve released the map into the public domain: if you don’t like their labels, or their choice of cities or colours or textures, you can make changes to the map and put out your own version.

Previously: Equal Earth Gets a Wall Map.

It was announced today at NACIS that the Equal Earth projection is now available as a wall map—which is a necessary thing if it’s going to go toe-to-toe with the Peters map. The political wall map is only available as a download (three versions, centred on Africa and Europe, the Americas, or the Pacific): the 19,250 × 10,150-pixel, 350 dpi file results in a 1.4 × 0.74 m (55″ × 29″) print—assuming you have access to a large-format plotter. Not everyone does, so it’s only a matter of time, I suspect, before they have prints available for sale.

The map shows countries and territories in surprising detail (it includes Clipperton, for example); and while it does show disputed regions as such, its choices of boundaries and nomenclature won’t make it many fans in South Korea or India.

Previously: The Equal Earth Projection; Equal Earth Updates; More on Equal Earth.

The Gall-Peters projection is a second-rate projection with first-rate public relations; cartographers’ responses to the projection that focused on its cartographic shortcomings ended up missing the point. Something different is happening with the Equal Earth projection, which was announced last month as a response to Gall-Peters: an equal-area projection with “eye appeal.” It’s getting media traction: the latest news outlet to take notice is Newsweek. So, finally, there’s an alternative that can be competitive on the PR front, without having to mumble something about all projections being compromises until the eyes glaze over.

It’s turning up in GIS packages, too: in D3, in G.Projector and in proj4. There’s even a t-shirt.

Previously: The Equal Earth Projection; Equal Earth Updates.

In 2014 cartographer Tom Patterson and his colleagues, Bojan Šavrič and Bernhard Jenny, introduced the eponymous Patterson projection, a cylindrical projection that reduced polar exaggeration while maintaining the familiar shape of continents.¹ Patterson, who recently retired from the U.S. National Park Service, has teamed up with Šavrič and Jenny to produce a new projection: the Equal Earth projection.

This projection can be seen as the cartographer’s response to the Peters map: in fact, the team created it in reaction to the furor over the Gall-Peters projection being adopted by Boston public schools. “Our message—that Gall-Peters is not the only equal-area projection—was not getting through,” the authors wrote in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science (mirrored here). “We searched for alternative equal-area map projections for world maps, but could not find any that met all our aesthetic criteria.” Citing their own research into map readers’ projection preferences, they decided against projections like the Eckert IV, Mollweide and sinusoidal and opted to make their own: “a new projection that would have more ‘eye appeal’ compared to existing equal-area projections and to give it the catchy name Equal Earth.”

The end result is a Robinson-like pseudocylindrical projection that nevertheless preserves area—and, like the Robinson, is nicer to look at than a cylindrical equal-area projection like the Gall-Peters. It’s actually kind of impressive that they were able to square that particular circle. The article details their decision-making process and the math behind the projection and is worth a read. It’ll be interesting to see whether this map gains any traction. I wish it well.

Previously: The Patterson Projection; The Peters Projection Comes to Boston’s Public Schools; The Peters Map Is Fighting the Last War; More on Boston Schools and the Peters Map; The 74 on Boston Schools and the Peters Map.

New (17 Aug): Equal Earth Updates.