UN Votes To Encourage Map Projections More Accurately Reflecting the True Size of Continents (un.org) 274
The United Nations has an announcement. "The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to encourage governments, schools and tech companies worldwide to stop using maps that make Africa look far smaller than it really is."
By 164 votes to one, Member States on Friday endorsed a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents — the culmination of an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator projection, still the most widely used map in the world. The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a "radical ideological project." Six countries — Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine — abstained.
The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.
Behind that seemingly technical debate lies a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has, over generations, distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex continent... [With Mercator maps] landmasses appear increasingly enlarged the farther they are from the Equator. Greenland, for instance, can look roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger. Northern Europe and North America are similarly magnified, relative to equatorial regions. Despite its original navigational purpose, Mercator remains common in educational, media, digital and official materials. The resolution says those distortions have contributed to the "symbolic minimization" of Africa and perpetuated an unbalanced view of the world...
Equal-area maps do not make Africa larger; they remove the exaggeration Mercator gives landmasses closer to the poles.
The UN notes that hours before the vote, France's foreign minister announced the country was planning to abandon Mercator for its maps of the world.
The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.
Behind that seemingly technical debate lies a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has, over generations, distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex continent... [With Mercator maps] landmasses appear increasingly enlarged the farther they are from the Equator. Greenland, for instance, can look roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger. Northern Europe and North America are similarly magnified, relative to equatorial regions. Despite its original navigational purpose, Mercator remains common in educational, media, digital and official materials. The resolution says those distortions have contributed to the "symbolic minimization" of Africa and perpetuated an unbalanced view of the world...
Equal-area maps do not make Africa larger; they remove the exaggeration Mercator gives landmasses closer to the poles.
The UN notes that hours before the vote, France's foreign minister announced the country was planning to abandon Mercator for its maps of the world.
The West Wing already fixed this (Score:2)
Projection? (Score:2)
Who uses flat maps these days?
Re: Projection? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
On google maps it does not matter, as you look on a small area.
When you zoom out, it might be Mercator. But who cares? If you actually plot a route from A to B, the algorithm does it.
It does not really matter if Africa is from west to east wider than the USA. You get a damn route, that exists: as in trains or roads. And get the amount of hours it takes you.
It is not the fault of the entire world that the US of Awesomeness does not teach Geography in school.
I was not even 10 when I learned all the map projec
Re: (Score:3)
And when you zoom in it's Mercator zoomed in.
Re: (Score:2)
Flap Earth. Flat map. I fail to see the problem.
How about ... (Score:2, Informative)
Typical (Score:5, Funny)
Almost everyone: "Let's make things more accurately resemble reality..."
USA: No!!!!!! Reality is woke!!!!
Re: (Score:2)
It's hilarious, the moment I saw the headline of the article I knew the US would object.
And the moment I read "By 164 votes to one" I realized that the US had attained the dubious honour of being even more of an international gong show than North Korea.
It's all about navigation, not politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Mercator projection is not some colonial conspiracy aimed at diminishing the importance of some continents but a conformal map preserving angles, which was a cartographic breakthrough immensely simplifying navigation by following rhumb lines (paths of constant compass bearing).
Re:It's all about navigation, not politics (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct, but most maps are not used for such navigation. They are used to teach children about the world, and to show adults where things are relative to other things. The distortion of sizes defeats those purposes, so it makes sense to campaign for more accurate maps.
The size of Africa in particular is something that surveys have shown non-Africans to regularly underestimate. The effects of that are debatable, but it is claimed that the potential of the continent and the variety it sports are also underestimated as a result.
Re: (Score:3)
How much of that is due to the map projection? And how of that is due to the fact that most Americans are very poorly educated about Africa; and we tend to compress things with which we're not familiar in our minds. Even I'm guilty of it. Just this year I re-discovered the fact that not every country of okay with endless suburban sprawl. So they build their cities BIG; such the population of San Francisco, which is "the" city to me, could be a mere neighborhood. And no amount of studying the map and pho
Re: It's all about navigation, not politics (Score:2)
Compromise solution (Score:3)
You can't have a equal area projection of a sphere that preserves angles. So I'd propose a flat earth as compromise that admits both angle and area preservation in maps. The only disadvantage is, that we need to replace the moon by a projection and need mind control to make people think they've seen an eclipse.
There's no good answer (other than a globe) (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not sure that the UN should be in the business of defining a "standard" map projection-- why shouldn't everybody use the map that they find most useful? But if they have to set one single standard map, I'm happy it's not Mercator, because, indeed, the Mercator projection is misleading on area.
In its defence, though, while Mercator distorts areas, it keeps shapes correct (locally), and it also keeps directions correct. Small-area accuracy and correct directions are more important than the large-area distortions for most practical use.
Any projection that keeps areas correct must distort shapes. You can't mash the surface of a sphere onto a flat surface without distorting something.
My favorite is the Lambert equal-area projection, which actually gives you the impression of being a projection of a globe, but you can't win-- all the projections have flaws.
I'll also note that the new UN standard map has moved the equator back up to the center of the map. Pretty much every Mercator projection you ever see has the equator moved toward the bottom, because (1) the far southern reaches are not important to people in the northern hemisphere, and (2) if you put the equator in the center, the Mercator distortion makes Antarctica absolutely HUGE, which puts too much of a highlight on how inaccurate the projection is.
I will also point out that the UN logo itself shows a polar view, different from ANY of the other views (but very clearly is favoring the northern hemisphere).
https://globalsymbols.com/uplo... [globalsymbols.com]
Re: (Score:2)
They're not, and they didn't.
Map size (Score:2)
Does the UN think the reason so few care about the continent of Africa is due to how the maps are drawn ?
Perhaps it is the lack of overall development of the countries upon the Continent that makes everything about
Africa so obscure / irrelevant in the 21st Century. Nearly all of the continent is severely lagging behind the rest
of the World in just about every measurable metric that exists.
Of course, there are a few terrible exceptions, keep reading.
About the only time the World at large pays attention to an
DEI maps? (Score:2)
Blaspheme! Jesus wants evangelicals in the middle and Yhhuuuge!
Mercator projection is racist :| (Score:2)
number of countries (Score:2)
It says like 161 to 1.
There are 193 members, what about the other 30ish?
Mercator projection might have harmed Africa (Score:4, Informative)
Geez, I was hoping for more from slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
What an amazing number of utterly ignorant comments.
South Africa... so, tell me, slashdotters, what's the most populous country in Africa?
And the idtiot talking about "gangs", as though all of Africa, about the size of all of North America, was a small city with gangs.
And complaining about the UN having this even on their agenda is like complaining about trans-women on school sports teams, when there are more youth pastors in Texas alone that were convicted of child porn than there are trans-women athletes in school sports in the entire country, but that's a major agenda of the GOP.
Mercator is still superior (Score:3)
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:2)
Maybe they are trying to develop more ecotourism in the African nations.. only my guess
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4)
Or, maybe they're hoping that the US will become less interested in Greenland once we see how much smaller it looks on the new map projection.
Bah... who am I kidding. The only changes we're going to be making to our maps for the next two years will be adding "America" to the names of places.
Re: (Score:2)
Somehow, I don't see Intel or Ford building a factory there, what with all the gangs and stuff, not to mention where are they going to put their paychecks?
Not to mention most of Africa barely has power or running clean water, so whatever company decides to built there is gonna have to solve those.
Re: (Score:3)
South Africa has a thriving car industry with local manufacturers and assembly of foreign cars. Kenya and Ethopia make their own cars as well.
Re: (Score:2)
All the more reason to be honest. The experience has been had with China where everything got copied and the wrong lesson will be learned. They will not invest properly in cheap countries rather than learning to avoid semi-lawless dictatorships.
learning to avoid semi-lawless dictatorships. (Score:2)
"learning to avoid semi-lawless dictatorships" is the real reason.
No one would invest in a factory or other business if the risk that it will be burned down, looted or destroyed is high.
It the cost of doing business in a country involves paying millions for military force protection, why would you do business there?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
South Africa is about two steps away from total collapse due to the mismanagement of infrastructure and water resources since the ANC came to power with the population increase over the past 30 years and the reduced rain in 2016, 2019 and 2020 exposing just how bad the situation is. The 'official' estimate is they currently lose 30% of their drinkable water due to leaks and theft, which means the actual amount is almost certainly higher*.
*Poor government numbers should always be assumed to be worse than the
Re: (Score:2)
Make that 'and so should good ones.' I really need to proofread better after editing things mid-sentence.
Re: (Score:2)
If there were that much trade, there'd soon be a railroad to take the product from the factories to the nearest port.
Re: (Score:3)
That's a chicken and egg thing. If there were more infrastructure, there's be more trade, but if there were more trade, there'd be more infrastructure.
The only way to change that is growth, and that requires a stable, healthy society.
Re: (Score:2)
Not completely, I can imagine potential customers telling the factory owner that they need to get their prices down and in the long run, building a rail line is the best way. Of course, I'm assuming that the auto part factories aren't the only ones using it so that the costs get spread around.
Re: (Score:3)
Africans have been managing their money with their cellphones for over a decade, while SOME countries still write checks.
Re: (Score:2)
Checks are a now-antiquated holdover high trust, long-time-preference society, where checks effectively held the same weight as cash (or hard currency). They never had checks or similar mechanisms in Africa because checks require a high trust, long-time-preference society.
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:2)
Checks are a now-antiquated holdover high trust, long-time-preference society, where checks effectively held the same weight as cash (or hard currency). They never had checks or similar mechanisms in Africa because checks require a high trust, long-time-preference society.
What kind of retarded inbred claim is Africa never had checks, or that checks were as good as cash anywhere else, on what fucking planet? There's a long history of personal checks not being accepted, or only if the merchant knows your bank or employer. There's a long tradition of people in need being denied financial services in general, especially in rural America (high trust my ass), and OBVIOUSLY rural colonial Africa and indigenous parts of Africa didn't have financiers standing by with bags of money.
Ho
Re: (Score:2)
There aren't a lot of cell towers in the desert because there aren't a lot of cell phones in the desert. And that's a one way relationship. They don't cell towers in the desert because there are no people there. People do not decline to move to the desert because there's no cell service.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:3)
You're stereotyping an entire continent. There are scary stories south of our border too, but if you reduce all of south and central America to that you're a fucking retard.
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:2)
I don't have a RealID or passport
Ofc you don't.
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:5, Insightful)
How is map accuracy suddenly political?
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4, Funny)
They are just derivative, poorly rendered copies of the earth.
That's why I keep the real thing in my backyard for safe keeping. If you need to reference it, just try not to wrinkle it up too much if you fold it.
Re: (Score:3)
They are just derivative, poorly rendered copies of the earth.
That's why I keep the real thing in my backyard for safe keeping. If you need to reference it, just try not to wrinkle it up too much if you fold it.
You and Steven Wright are birds of a feather ...
I have a map of the United States... Actual size. It says, "Scale: 1 mile = 1 mile." I spent last summer folding it.
I hardly ever unroll it. People ask me where I live, and I say, "E6."
-- Steven Wright
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A couple thousand years. Maybe more.
https://news.miami.edu/stories... [miami.edu]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
How is map accuracy suddenly political?
Anything this U.S. Administration doesn't understand or like and/or doesn't somehow benefit its aging, increasingly confused leader is deemed bad, at least by those who can be easily punished by not going along with things.
The United States cast the sole vote against, dismissing the initiative as part of a "radical ideological project."
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4, Insightful)
It is possible to work on two problems at once.
2 problems = trickery. (Score:2)
There are lots of ways to use "solve this also" to ensure that nothing gets solved.
The stereotypical example is:
Party A want to solve homelessness. They create a new building that will house them. Yay, we got a law passed!
Party B hates poor people and decides to make sure the new building fails. So they pass the following restrictions added on to the law.
1) Make it a drug rehab location also.
2) No dogs allowed, they might bite people.
3) Put it in the worst part of the city, nobody wants these homeless pe
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:3)
Like Iran & Russia?
The U.S. is an active participant in one of those and Congress still manages to name a few post offices.
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4, Insightful)
Merely dragging this out makes the US look worse and worse the longer it goes on. And the more gas prices rise, the more families receive their kids home in a box, the more our trading partners say "yeah, no thanks to your bullshit sanctions over your needless war of aggression", the more successful Iran is.
Are they ever going to outright win in a traditional military conquest sense? Of course not. Are we going to be wiping egg off our faces for decades to come? I hope you like omelettes.
Re: (Score:2)
"Oh you think America is losing? Well we will just stay in this war indefinitely, America always wins wars when then happens and the electorate is polarized about it.
That's how we won Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, by having undefined goals. Checkmate liberals"
Re: (Score:2)
Iran is only allowed food if America lets it.
I pine for the brief period when that was recognized as a war crime [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
If it wasn't for bots these stories would have half the comments.
simian botography (Score:2)
i don't think they're bots. too cringe. besides, who would pay for bots on slashdot? we're 4 old monkeys here surrounded by a handful of critters.
oh, wait ... you mean they're slashdot's own bots?
Re: (Score:2)
It wouldn't take much to slop code something and mix that in with the people here running sock puppet accounts.
Re:TDS (Score:4, Informative)
True! In six months 750 million barrels have come out of the Persian gulf.
Only problem is under normal circumstances that amount should have been 3.6 billion.
So hey, only need a 5x increase! Things are going great!
https://youtu.be/QeQwZgWN9dw?t... [youtu.be]
Re: (Score:2)
Even your best case scenario (which you won't prove) is like 60% off normal.
Iran doesn't have to or try to win, just survive. The fact you think that matters reveals how over their skis the admin is.
That's the type of foreign policy insight you get when you don't fire anyone with knowledge about anything. I'm sure Pete H will have this in the bag any week now.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Trump has blockaded Iran's economy
2. And also removed 2.9 million illegals
The Center for Immigration Studies [cis.org] ("Low-immigration, Pro-immigrant") says: "Total Foreign-Born Down 2.9 Million" and "We preliminarily estimate that the illegal immigrant population has fallen 2.3 million."
They claim this is based on a Census Bureau study for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but they don't provide a link to their source, and I haven't been able to find any support for this claim on the Census Bureau Web site. It's getting some publicity, though.
At least get your numbers right.
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4, Informative)
You misunderstand how it works. The UN is a platform for diplomacy. A country or a group of countries call a topic for discussion to the General Assembly. It is then discussed until possibly a vote on a resolution can be held. The UN provides the infrastructure for the discussions to happen, not a Great Leader that chooses which topics can be discussed or not.
Also, topics do not need to be top agenda. Taking care only of top agenda item is a very fuced up way to handle an agenda, or workload, or business. You have to be able to handle multiple things at a time.
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4, Interesting)
And also something to remember is that the UN has to be a bit powerless by design otherwise nobody would be a part of it, much less the largest nations. It's frustrating but the alternative is a really nothing in it's place.
It's just like "laws" around warfare like the Geneva Convention. If the rules are too restrictive on either side of the war then those rules just won't get followed.
Re: (Score:2)
. If the rules are too restrictive on either side of the war then those rules just won't get followed.
Like Iran and Russia...
I seem to recall that the US attacked Iran. Has history been revised?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
And FYI, a hell of a lot of Americans think maybe, just maybe, no individual should have a billion dollars. When flat-out paying cash for a healthy large-cap S&P listed company on a whim is a realistic option, it's time to accept your "you won capitalism" ribbon and retire to a small farm in upstate New York.
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:5, Interesting)
It does not appear to be a top agenda item. It didn't even make this page:
https://unfoundation.org/unga8... [unfoundation.org]
It is getting some attention because the US elected a president who wants to invade Greenland because it looks so large on a map he was shown.
"I love maps. And I always said, 'Look at the size of this. It's massive.' That should be part of the United States."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025... [foreignpolicy.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Great, now he wants to invade Africa.
I'm all for correcting the maps, but the problem was never the map...
Re: (Score:2)
Well, he's bombed two of them so far.
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Amazing how up the facts don't care about your feelings crowd gets so upset over updating a map.
Re: (Score:2)
There is NO accurate way to map a sphere onto a rectangle. You can't avoid distortion. The best you can do is pick a distortion that minimizes some sources of error. Mercator was a good projection for sailing ships, but they had to be wary of the way it distorted distances. It's less appropriate for airplanes.
What's appropriate now would probably be a simple circle projection on a screen that was centered at whatever point you happened to be interested in. The distortion would increase as you approache
Re:A giant step forward for mankind (Score:4, Informative)
united clowns (Score:2)
OK that's sarcastic, but is this really the top agenda item at the UN?
what do you mean "top agenda"? any agenda usually has lot of items in it and at some point they (hopefully) all get addressed.
but of course you're right, the un already ran its course a long while ago. but not really for deciding on menial issues. i think the "top agenda" for un bureaucrats at this time is job security.
Re: (Score:2)
If you read the resolution, there is a bunch of blah blah, but it also encourages using multiple different projections to teach geography and to teach about projections themselves. That's pretty clearly something that's needed in the world.
Re: A giant step forward for mankind (Score:2, Insightful)
The UN is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, They refuse to condemn the genocides in China and Armenia, but have time to clutch pearls over maps. Yeah ok whatever
Re: (Score:2)
When has the UN ever been worth anything more serious? I mean, really, it's a toothless, virtue signaling wankfest, as it was designed to be.
Re: (Score:3)
If of course impossible to make an accurate flat map of the earth. Any may will distort something - shapes or angles, or it needs huge cuts. Fortunately today almost everyone uses electronics maps that let you rotate and zoom a globe, so it really doesn't matter anymore
Re: (Score:2)
except you can't put that in a textbook
Re: (Score:2)
Serious question, do people still use textbooks? I finished school almost 40 years ago and don't have kids, I just assumed everything was online now.
I rarely open a physical book, much more convenient to read the electronic versions - more portable, searchable etc.
I'd hope a classroom would have a globe.
If a flat map is needed, the different common projections are good for different things and each should be used where it makes sense.
I don't mind the UN picking a different projection as "standard" but it se
Re: (Score:2)
...yes, people still use textbooks
talking about the priorities of an organization which is mostly symbolic except for the security commission, aka the US doesn't need to care what you think club, is pretty silly
Re: (Score:2)
I don't mind the UN picking a different projection as "standard" but it seems way down on the list of priorities.
I think the UN did not recommend anything in particular but for information France announced their choice as Eckert IV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I'd much rather the UN wasted their time doing nonsense like this than trying to tame the boiling oceans. It would be even better if they tried to enforce peace, but that's not important enough for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Your screen is not spherical, so your virtual map is also a projection with the same trade-offs as paper maps. You can either have the areas or the angles preserved.
Re: I hate it here (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that's called a projection. It's the same thing a map in a textbook does, or the one you hang on a wall. The Mercator projection is used for navigation so it is quite different from the various perspective or orthographic projections used in most video games or the various projections Google Earth uses. The projections recommended by the UN resolution are considerably closer.
https://medium.com/retronator-... [medium.com]
https://developers.google.com/... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
They DON'T have the same trade-offs, though they do have different ones. You can minimize distortion on a computer map by having a circular projection that is automatically centered wherever you indicate an interest. Yeah, you'd have lots of distortion around the edges...but ... Do you know what the fovea is?
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately today almost everyone uses electronics maps that let you rotate and zoom a globe, so it really doesn't matter anymore
The resolution is about encouraging "governments and education [and tech companies]". Governments publish PDF reports and schools post paper maps on the wall; plus the vast majority of the schools in the world use paper books (even if alongside electronic options in a few of them).
Re:I hate it here (Score:5, Interesting)
There never was a point in "minimizing" Africa (or Russia or China for that matter).
It is a farking map projection.
Invent a better one, or place 0 longitude at Beijing or Tokyo and Africa looks smaller: on the same map projection.
No one ever had the intention to make Africa look small, that is a stupid bullshit idea.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no "right" line, all lines will be arbitrary and thus generate arguments. Maybe we can stick it in the middle of the ocean whereby it intersects nothing of importance since if we can't play nice, then nobody gets the toy.
Re: (Score:2)
That works. Place it on the International Date Line. People who use 12 hour clocks will never notice.
Re: I hate it here (Score:3)
Re:I hate it here (Score:4, Informative)
I am both disappointed and proud to be the first person on slashdot to take this seriously. Accurate maps are important because the whole point of sticking with the old shitty projections is literally minimizing Africa. Why does this website have so many racists on it?
Or the map is exactly what it's designed to be, optimized for marine navigation. Especially when navigating with just a compass, sextant, and clock - which is all they had when it was designed. It was never intended to be representative of the actual size of landmasses, that's not even remotely the reason that stype of map exists. If you want one that shows things as they are across the entrie planet, use a globe. But anytime you flatten a sphere into a 2 dimensional map there are going to be trade offs, depending on what you need the map for navigation or a pretty picture. The UN voted they want to use the pretty picture for teaching about the world,, which nothing wrong with that, it's mostly useless for navigation, but if all you need is a picture for teaching about the world, then it's a representative pretty picture much like a globe is and likely is a better choice for text books and teaching geography. But if you need to navigate then Mercator projection is a better choice. So no rascim, just right tool for the right job.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The resolution isn't about navigation. It's about education and our modern habit of using maps as decoration. Decoration is one thing, but the Mercator projection isn't a very good choice for education. I was surprised to learn that lots of countries use it. Every elementary classroom I was ever in had an actual globe and a Homolosine projection map. Personally, I think the UN and the various organizations advocating for this missed an opportunity to advocate for Homolosine.
The resolution also recommends te
Re: (Score:2)
The classrooms I was in had a globe and a Mercator projection. (Well, the ones that had either of those, and the globe was more common.)
Re: (Score:2)
Well... there aren't really any human races anymore. At least there aren't any defensible boundaries. You could, however, pick defensible centroids it were important to you. There are reasonable arguments that the Neanderthals and Denisovians were reasonably called human races, but even there you're really talking about centroids, and not well defined boundaries.
Re: (Score:2)
You're being silly. Yeah, the grandpas would probably want the Mercator projection, but that's because it's what they learned as kids. Just like they prefer feet and inches over meters and centimeters. (Fahrenheit over Celsius, however, is practical. Fahrenheit has finer divisions of temperature in the range people most commonly experience. And for many purposes teaspoons and tablespoons are better than ccs.)
Re: (Score:2)
A close approach to accuracy requires using a globe. No flat map will do, except possibly one that is a fractal.