2999: Bad Map Projection: The United Stralia

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Bad Map Projection: The United Stralia
This projection distorts both area and direction, but preserves Melbourne.
Title text: This projection distorts both area and direction, but preserves Melbourne.

Explanation

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This is the eighth comic in the series of Bad Map Projections displaying Bad Map Projection #102: The United Stralia. It follows #45: Exterior Kansas, released about three and a half months earlier. In this addition to the Bad Map Projections series, Randall has blended two different countries — the United States of America and Australia — into one.

As with a number of Bad Map Projections, the primary joke is the naming of this as a "map projection". Its depiction is particularly similar to 2807: Bad Map Projection: ABS(Longitude), in which geography is overlaid upon other geography. It also follows the practice of 2256: Bad Map Projection: South America, in which a general continental shape is forced upon other areas, with the general geographical outline of the 48 contiguous US states being merged with the political boundaries of Australia (with exceptions, most obviously Australia's Bass Strait being retained in lieu of the US's central Florida). At a further level of merging, the US states are repacked as subdivisions within the various Australian ones; as with the likes of 2394: Contiguous 41 States, it also takes some liberties with the relative neighboring positioning of some of these, although not by totally removing any of the actual contiguous United States. Alaska and Hawaii aren't included, likely because the 48 contiguous US states better match the shape and size of Australia. Australia also has no equivalent of Alaska and Hawaii.

The relative weather of the states of the USA is opposite of Australia's. Australia's north is closest to the equator but the USA's north is farthest from the equator. Thus, if Australia's climate were literally applied to the US, Florida would be cold while Maine would be hot. Or would the USA's climate be applied to Australia?

The map pokes fun at superficial and irrelevant similarities between features of the maps of the United States and Australia, such as the shape of the east coasts of New England and the Cape York Peninsula, and the distance to the southern tip of island of Tasmania and the length of the Florida peninsula. The end result is to illustrate a fanciful place which does not actually exist and thus would have limited worth for navigating either Australia or the USA, although navigation between two listed locations/areas drawn from the same original continent would at least be broadly possible (with the possibility of a few 'surprises' en route). The blending features cities from both countries on the map, e.g., San Francisco and Los Angeles (USA) close to Perth (Australia).

The states and territories of Australia are depicted with black lines/labels, while the states of the United States and such cities as are taken from either nation are marked with gray. The Australian states are labeled with their full names, but the American states are given only their postal abbreviations. (Mississippi is mislabeled as MI, in addition to Michigan's own correct usage, instead of the official MS.) Western Australia is usually abbreviated to WA, but the convention here leaves that unambiguously assigned to the US state of Washington. Idaho, for some reason, is not labeled at all, and neither is the Australian island state of Tasmania.

The title text makes a joke that this map does not preserve area or direction (typically, a map projection sacrifices one to preserve the other, or both to correctly depict a particular distance metric), but does preserve the city of Melbourne as a feature located on the map, near the actual location of Melbourne, Florida. Note that this is not the correct location of Melbourne, Australia, as it is far too much east in the bad map projection, but there is nothing to stop the shared Melbourne being entirely 'correct' and every other feature being shifted as a 'compromise'. The concept of a point being 'preserved', rather than actual dimensionally-meaningful quantities, is meaningless and just adds to the badness of the projection. There are other city names shared between the US and Australia, but they're not located at any obviously similar geographic locations; e.g., the location of Brisbane in the comic is based on the instance in Queensland, not California (potentially named after the main example) or North Dakota.

This is the second comic in October 2024 in which Tasmania appears, the first being 2996: CIDABM. Both feature the major island groups in the Bass Strait, in this case perhaps intended as a sort of analogue to the Florida Keys, or else orphaned coastline features across the 'missing' segment of the US peninsula.

Geographical relationships

From west to east, the Australian states and territories contain the following U.S. states; the positions of Australian cities on the map are also listed:

Western Australia contains the following U.S. states:

  • Arizona
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Idaho
  • Montana
  • Nevada
  • New Mexico
  • Oregon
  • Utah
  • Washington
  • Wyoming

Northern Territory contains the following U.S. states:

  • Illinois
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Michigan (Upper Peninsula)
  • Minnesota
    • Darwin is positioned in northwestern Minnesota.
  • Missouri
  • Nebraska
  • North Dakota
  • South Dakota
  • Wisconsin

South Australia contains the following U.S. states:

Queensland contains the following U.S. states and territories:

  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • District of Columbia
  • Indiana
  • Kentucky
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan (Lower Peninsula)
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New York
  • North Carolina
    • Brisbane is located on the coast in southeast North Carolina.
  • Ohio
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • Tennessee
  • Vermont
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia

New South Wales contains the following U.S. states:

Victoria and Tasmania combine to make up the U.S. state of Florida, which is now divided into two non-contiguous parts. As a result Tasmania, which has a history of being omitted from maps of Australia, is displayed but not named. Melbourne is located in the southeast corner of Victorian Florida. Although Tasmania's largest city Hobart is not labeled, it could share the same general location of Miami on the map. Alaska and Hawaii, the two non-contiguous states of the United States, do not appear in the projection. Other major geographic distortions include:

  • The U.S. now has two quadripoints, with the intersection of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico joining the existing Four Corners.
  • Indiana has a border with Arkansas.
  • Alabama and Mississippi have lost Gulf Coast access, as Florida has a border with Louisiana.
  • Missouri has a north-south border with Oklahoma.
  • Miami is separated from the lower 48 states, as it is now located in the non-contiguous Tasmanian Florida.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

Above the map, in 3 paragraphs:

Bad map projection #102:
[In larger letters than the first or the third paragraph]: The United Stralia
A 50/50 US/Australia blend

[A map whose left side looks like that of Australia and whose right side looks like that of the United States, with Tasmania swapped out for a supposed island that looks like South Florida. The modified subdivisions of Australia are bordered with black with their names also black, while those of the United States are bordered with the same grey the city names are written with, with the US state abbreviations being a brighter one]:

Trivia

The use of "Stralia" in the title echoes a common Australian verbal abbreviation for the country, often styled something like 'Stralia, in casual speech or sometimes more formally. This is a convenient punny replacement of the word "States" in "The United States", as it starts with the same two letters.

On the day this comic was released, the xkcd homepage changed to show a strip showing Cueball installing a "Harris For President" sign in some grass, presumably on his lawn. This relates to the upcoming 2024 US presidential election.


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Discussion

He forgot the Idaho abbreviation. Danger Kitty (talk) hello172.68.54.64 19:49, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

And Mississippi has stolen Michigan's abbreviation! 172.70.206.240 23:18, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

5 likes and I will make this a reality Caliban (talk) 20:10, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Probably this is because I'm more familiar with the map of Australia than of the US, but Melbourne seems to have moved quite a bit to the east and is now presumably in Gippsland? Oddly that's the most jarring change for me... Zoid42 (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Melbourne Florida. 172.70.47.10 21:56, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I guess that explains the location -- though I'd not heard of the Melbourne in Florida previously. The other jarring thing is (on the east coast at least) the climates don't match up. Florida is closer to Queensland in terms of climate (and maybe culturally), Tasmania is colder and I guess probably closer to the north-eastern US states. Plus I can't really see Adelaide as being that much like New Orleans... -- Zoid42 (talk) 21:58, 17 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

An eight-legged gator with fangs the size of your arm, six eyes, and the ability to spin webs is truly a horrifying thought. P?sych??otic?pot??at???o (talk) 21:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

At that point most of the NT would become to dangerous for people to live. SomeRandomNerd (talk) 23:21, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

If find it weird how tasmania is florida, as while they are in the same place, they are the least alike 2 places you could think of. SomeRandomNerd (talk) 22:35, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. If cartoons and television have taught me anything, one is home to a bunch of snarling, slobbering, ravenous beasts, moving across the landscape as whirlwinds of wanton destruction. And the other is Tasmania. 172.64.238.130 04:59, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Part of the joke is that the contiguous 48 States plus DC have nearly the same area as Australia, though the US has a larger total area. 141.101.109.166 01:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

As an Australian citizen, this map hurts my soul. This is amazingly painful and I kinda love it. OmniDoom (talk) 01:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I apparently now live in Adelaide/Louisiana (or New Orleans/South Australia). FourW (talk) 06:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)FourW

Environmentalists will be upset with Randal for finally finishing the Cross Florida Barge Canal. And just in time for the centennial!--The Mess (talk) 07:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I was wondering if it was a sidelong comment upon the effects of Hurricane Milton... 172.70.160.188
No, no, no. It's the Gap Chasm.[1] 172.71.183.173 (talk) 17:26, 17 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The distortion of Washington State, where I live, is painful, but funny. Can't wait for comic 3000! 172.71.146.58 16:00, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I know, it's probably going to be sometime on monday- i saw a website who said they would rank all 3000 comics then! SomeRandomNerd (talk) 09:44, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
Ohh, could you send me the link to that website? Willintendo (talk) 14:16, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Being about to shift to the right at an election next weekend, it is very prescient (and scary) that SE Queensland, where I live, is in North Carolina. 172.68.64.212 18:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

That's great! As a Sydney resident this cartoon gave me an earworm. I'll be singing it all day; "South Carolina On My Mind". Ozhamada (talk) 22:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Stralia might not have anything directly equivalent to Hawaii and Alaska (significantly distant non-contiguous states), but it does have an island state (Tasmania) as well as several non-state island territories, and a mahoosive chunk of Antarctica that might have done in place of Alaska.172.70.90.35 09:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, Tasmsnia's already there, you'll note, which is there for that broken-Florida-like bit. Torres Straight islands and wider-afield territories/semi-adopted aren't really as handy replacements for the non-contiguous bits of the US, though. I can see why it was only taken as far as it was, for parody purposes. Diminishing returns on anything further. 172.69.194.11 15:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
New Guinea looks like Alaska, while Australia also has some small islands that may resemble Hawaii. ConscriptGlossary (talk) 06:40, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm. Not convinced that the description's assertion that "Florida would be cold" if its weather were analogous to the south of Australia was written be someone who has been to Australia. Granted, the red centre will cook you alive, and the cold water comes out of the taps hot in NT...but still. SA is hardly "cold". Yorkshire Pudding (talk) 22:32, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Someone has edited (changed from the original) the paragraph about Australia's north being closer to the equator than its south in a way which makes no sense. The climate of Australia is created by a number of factors, many of them which would still be true even if the land formations of the USA replaced the land formations which exist in reality in the USA. Anything closer to the equator is going to be hotter than those things closer to the antarctic. The ocean currents would also remain the same. It is true that the land formations of the USA do affect its climate and these would have some affect if those formations replaced Australia's but the path of the Sun over that part of the globe and the ocean currents would affect the climate in a way different from what is suggested by the edited content. --00:51, 20 October 2024 (UTC)172.70.254.172

Anyone else see a *very* similar map on social media recently? I think it might've been one of those "bad maps" X accounts that posted one that's almost identical but with different labeling a couple days ago, clearly the inspiration for Randall. Probably worth mentioning that in the explanation somewhere. PotatoGod (talk) 22:03, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I have been referencing this map for years, to try to explain how isolated Perth is. I say: imagine San Francisco is the only city on the west coast, and the edge of the state runs south from the Montana/Dakotas border. And the next nearest city is Houston. Although I guess I need to change that to SLO and New Orleans. 172.68.0.190 01:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Or, to put it another way, Perth is closer to the capital cities of Indonesia and Timor Leste than it is to its own national capital, and only barely closer to Brisbane, Queensland than it is to Singapore (whole different continent). Paddles (talk) 04:26, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

As a Canberrian I am a little offeneded ACT didn't deserve it's own area on the map. It doesn't deserve a state, because it isn't one. We are important though! We have an airport! Oh and something something parliament. Urban ACT is weirdly small and I challenge anyone to live there and never cross into NSW by accident. Oh and no label for Tassie. 172.68.126.134 (talk) 22:02, 19 October 2024 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

The same holds true for Maryland and Washington DC (Although DC's airports are in Virginia) These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 03:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Do the same mountain ranges, rivers, and bodies of water that define USA state boundaries exist in The United Stralia? If not, a hell of a lot of surveyors were blind, stinking drunk when they were working. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 03:03, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

This is probably the third time that Randall has split Michigan. ConscriptGlossary (talk) 08:20, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

May I get this printed on a poster, pretty please? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:20, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Request: Map Merge/Morph

Could someone please post a simple map outline of the contiguous US and of Australia, and then try to merge / morph the two maps together? 172.70.47.88 17:24, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

could you please elaborate on how you want to merge these two maps? 42.book.addict (talk) 18:22, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Aren't you just asking us to do exactly what Randall did this week? But if you want to see the two outlines without morphing, then you might want to try this superposition of Australia and US48 from thetruesize.com. Paddles (talk) 04:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Me again. Randall has artistic license. I have seen maps here where his version is different from the way a cartographer would apply the same techniques. 2999: Exterior Kansas is an example. Scroll down through the article to see what a true Azimuthal Projection with an Exterior Kansas would look like. I wonder how much 2999 resembles a 'true' [A|]US[A|] map merge. (Is "[A|]US[A|]" the best representation for this?) 172.71.98.101 16:25, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
Are you saying there's some algorithm which would produce a somehow canonical merge? That seems unlikely to me. Perhaps you can point to examples of the technique you want? 172.71.142.63 15:01, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

New Zealand/Hawaii

I feel like not including this one is a real missed opportunity in the alt text. 172.69.134.107 16:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Hawaii is four(ish) 'major' islands in a loose east-west group that have been part of the US since 1959 and has about 6.4k mi² of land area.
To contrast, New Zealand is two biiig islands, north-south orientated and practically touching in relative scale, that has been never been "part of Australia" (though part of the British Empire, along with Australia, until gradually shucked off in various changes to that across the 19th and 20th centuries) and covers over 100k mi².
Apart from anything else, it's probably a bit insulting to Kiwis to be assumed to be "the Hawaii of Australia". And for PNG/Indonesian peoples possibly being considered "the Alaskans", to follow up on that suggestion, that's problematic on various additional fronts. 172.69.195.182 00:27, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
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