Distortion of Greenland on Maps

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Greenland is 1/14th the size of Africa. However, in a map with the Mercator projection, it appears the same size due to the distortion characteristics of the Mercator projection.

Flat-Earthers claim the distortion of the Mercator map is a failure of science to describe the world. In reality, distortion is a consequence of flattening a 3D shape into flat 2D media. Distortion also occurs with the azimuthal equidistant map, which is claimed by flat-Earthers as the so-called “flat-Earth map.” All maps have distortions: it is incorrect to assume the azimuthal equidistant map is distortion-free.

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Distortions of the Azimuthal Equidistant Map

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The azimuthal equidistant projection is a projection of the spherical Earth. As a result, a map using this projection has distortions in distances, shapes, directions, and areas. Just like the azimuthal equidistant map, all other types of maps have their distortion characteristics.

In the illustration, the eight yellow dots indicate a location 5000 km from the red dot, toward all the cardinal directions and the intermediate directions. We can see that the distances, shapes, directions, and areas are distorted in some way depending on the location on the map.

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Air Map of the World 1943/1945

Flat-Earthers discovered a map titled “Air Map of the World” from 1943, explaining the flight routes during the time. Because the shape is identical to the fictional “flat Earth map,” they incorrectly claimed that it is a flat-Earth map. In reality, it is an azimuthal equidistant map that has distortions, a flattened shape of the spherical Earth on a flat surface, and does not depict the true shape of the Earth.

The exact nature of the map is even explained in a very detailed manner in the map’s description. Unfortunately, in the flat-Earth community, the map is passed around in a very low resolution, and therefore, the explanations become unreadable.

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The Gleason Map

The “Gleason Map” is a map with the azimuthal equidistant projection, centered on the north pole. The Gleason Map is not a scaled-down figure of the Earth, but it is merely a projection of the actual, spherical shape of the Earth, like every other map.

Alexander Gleason —the creator of the map— claimed that the map depicts the shape of the ‘flat Earth’. The majority of the flat-Earth communities adopt this map as ‘the flat-Earth map.’ They are wrong. The map is merely a projection of the spherical shape of the Earth, just like every other map types.

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Day and Night Areas on a Flat Earth

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At any given time, there is an equal area of the Earth that is experiencing daytime, and that is having a night time. The reason is that the sun is very far, and it would illuminate a hemisphere of the Earth, and leave the other dark.

If we plot which areas of the Earth that are getting sunlight on an azimuthal equidistant map centered on the north pole, the sun would appear to illuminate a somewhat elliptical area during the northern hemisphere summer, and a lopsided Bat-Signal shaped area during the winter. During the equinox, the sun would appear to illuminate a half-circle area.

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