Category:Bad Map Projections

This comic series is about Randall's bad map projections. Maps, real or, in this case, invented, are a recurrent topic on xkcd. Randall especially focuses on map projections, which are various ways to show the Earth on a flat surface, most famously depicted in 977: Map Projections. Projecting Earth on a flat map is not possible to do without distortion since the Earth is round, so every projection is a compromise. Normally, the projections try to be useful in some way while less precise on other situations. In this series, however, Randall solely makes fun of the idea of many different projections, even calling them all Bad Map Projections.

The map projections he has released all get a number, which, if taken seriously, would mean there are at least 349 that haven't been released, as the highest number so far is 358. The first two, The Liquid Resize and Time Zones was released using a similar six color scheme, with each country in a different color than its closest neighbors, but all the following ones were just plain black, gray, and white.

So far, they have the following numbers (release order shown at the end):

#45: Exterior Kansas (No. 7)

#79: Time Zones (No. 2)

#102: The United Stralia (No. 8)

#107: The Liquid Resize (No. 1)

#152: ABS(Longitude) (No. 6)

#194: Interrupted Spheres (No. 9)

#248: Madagascator (No. 5)

#299: The Greenland Special (No. 4)

#358: South America (No. 3)