Editing 2613: Bad Map Projection: Madagascator

{{comic
| number    = 2613
| date      = April 29, 2022
| title     = Bad Map Projection: Madagascator
| image     = bad_map_projection_madagascator.png
| titletext = The projection's north pole is in a small lake on the island of Mahé in the Seychelles, which is off the top of the map and larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined.
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic in the [[:Category:Bad Map Projections|Bad Map Projections]] series.  This time, Randall used the classic {{w|Mercator projection}} but instead of placing the North Pole on top and the South Pole on the bottom it is oriented so that the top is the island of {{w|Mahé, Seychelles|Mahé}}.  The map projection is technically a {{w|Oblique Mercator projection}}, with an unusual choice of the cylinder's axis.  Since the Mercator projection tends to visually distort areas near the top and bottom of the resulting map, this gives some areas, notably Madagascar, very unusual shapes.

The Mercator projection became the standard projection for world maps during the 1800s because it is ''conformal of normal aspect'': a {{w|rhumb line}} is displayed as a straight line in a Mercator map.  During the age of sail, when navigation was performed by compass - this was a very valuable feature, since one could plot a course between two locations by measuring the direction from one to another on the map and then accounting for the difference between the magnetic and actual north poles to determine which rhumb should be taken.  In the mid-20th century this trend was {{w|Mercator_projection#Criticism|criticized}} because the distortion towards the north and south poles gave an inaccurate impression of relative sizes.  The most common example given of this distortion is that on a Mercator map of the world Greenland looks to have more area than Africa, when in real life Africa covers 14 times that of Greenland.  Thus the reference to making Madagascar larger in this projection. Madagascar is a large island off the south east coast of the main African continent, but has only a quarter the coverage of Greenland. Greenland is often listed as the largest island in the world (which excludes continents in their own right, e.g. Australia) followed by New Guinea, Borneo and then Madagascar in fourth place.

Mahé, mentioned in the title text as the north pole's new location, is the largest island in Seychelles, with an area of 60.7 square miles. The claim in the title text that it is "larger than the rest of the Earth's land area combined", is an understatement, since the poles in the Mercator projection are infinitely far away the area occupied by Mahé in this projection is infinite. However no part of Mahé is visible on the comic.

Clicking on the actual comic will open a website that displays Mercator projections with a pole in any chosen location, with the location of the one opened set to Mahé. The chosen pole is (infinitely far to) the right of the screen, while its {{w|antipodes|antipode}} is on the left. With this, it is possible to see that the island is indeed larger than the rest of the map's land area combined, with a single national park within the island rivalling Africa in size, and at the site's cut-off point reaching a scale of distortion where a road is thicker than Panama. This also reveals that the location of the North Pole, the lake mentioned by Randall, is the Rochon Dam.

Unlike previous Bad Map Projections, Morocco and Western Sahara are drawn as one unlabelled country.

===Comparison of actual/mapped areas===
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!                         Landmass
!                         Status
! data-sort-type="number"|Actual Area<ref name="act">Major contiguous land areas that should exclude all islands, ''especially'' major ones, '''''especially''''' especially those listed separately</ref><br />(Millions of Km²)
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion<br />Land Area
! data-sort-type="number"|Proportion<br />Image Area<ref name="pri">Of only these listed areas listed</ref>
! data-sort-type="number"|Distortion<ref name="dis">NB. Difference between percentages, rather than percentage difference</ref>
|-
| Africa<ref name="suez">Edge at Suez Canal</ref>                                                     || data-sort-value="C2"|Continent<br /><small>2nd largest</small> || 29.7                                                                            || 19.95%                                         || 35%                                                           || +15.1%
|-
| Eurasia<ref name="suez" />                                                                          || data-sort-value="C1"|Continent<br /><small>Largest</small>     || 53.4                                                                            || 35.83%                                         || 30%                                                           ||  -5.83%
|-
| North America<ref name="pan">Edge at Panama Canal</ref>                                             || data-sort-value="C3"|Continent<br /><small>3rd largest</small> || 19.3                                                                            || 12.96%                                         || 15%                                                           ||  +2.04%
|-
| South America<ref name="pan" />                                                                     || data-sort-value="C4"|Continent<br /><small>4th largest</small> || 17.8                                                                            || 11.96%                                         ||  7.8%                                                         ||  -4.16%
|-
| Antarctica<ref name="ice">Significant ice-sheets may complicate mapped/actual 'land' areas</ref>    || data-sort-value="C5"|Continent<br /><small>5th largest</small> || 14.2                                                                            ||  9.53%                                         ||  5.3%                                                         ||  -4.23%
|-
| Madagascar                                                                                          || data-sort-value="I04"|Island<br /><small>4th largest</small>    ||  0.592                                                                          ||  0.40%                                         ||  2.9%                                                         ||  +2.50%
|-
| Australia                                                                                           || data-sort-value="C7"|Continent<br /><small>Smallest</small>    ||  7.55                                                                           ||  5.07%                                         ||  2.5%                                                         ||  -2.57%
|-
| Greenland<ref name="ice" />                                                                         || data-sort-value="I01"|Island<br /><small>Largest</small>        ||  2.17                                                                           ||  1.45%                                         ||  0.87%                                                        ||  -0.58%
|-
| Borneo                                                                                              || data-sort-value="I03"|Island<br /><small>3rd largest</small>    ||  0.749                                                                          ||  0.50%                                         ||  0.37%                                                        ||  -0.13%
|-
| New Guinea                                                                                          || data-sort-value="I02"|Island<br /><small>2nd largest</small>    ||  0.786                                                                          ||  0.53%                                         ||  0.32%                                                        ||  -0.21%
|-
| Japan<ref name="hon">Honshu only</ref>                                                              || data-sort-value="I07"|Island<br /><small>7th largest</small>    ||  0.228                                                                          ||  0.15%                                         ||  0.10%                                                        ||  -0.05%
|-
| Mainland Britain                                                                                    || data-sort-value="I09"|Island<br /><small>9th largest</small>    ||  0.209                                                                          ||  0.14%                                         ||  0.10%                                                        ||  -0.04%
|-
| Island of Ireland                                                                                   || data-sort-value="I20"|Island<br /><small>20th largest</small>   ||  0.082                                                                          ||  0.05%                                         ||  0.03%                                                        ||  -0.02%
|}

<references/>

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Bad map projection #248: Madagascator

Mercator projection but with the North Pole in the Indian Ocean so it exaggerates the size of Madagascar instead of Greenland. Various countries and oceans are labeled.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Bad Map Projections]]