Possibly interesting maps...

[villa4europe]

On 06/12/2018 at 00:01, Paddywhack said:

It’s strange, I know a few fairly intelligent people that just seem to a have a complete blind spot for anything geographical.

I quiz (take the piss out of) a woman at work on it. The other day I asked her to name 10 English cities.

”Ok...London...Wales..”

my ex had an A level in geography but couldnt tell you if stoke was north or south of brum, its a strange thing i would say as much as anything linked to a desire to travel, one of my lets say less intelligent friends (he's a bluenose) could sit and tell you more or less all the geography of africa because he's dreaming of travelling round there and he keeps looking at it, its pretty impressive

doesnt surprise me that americans who dont have passports and no intention of travelling cant tell you where anything is

[chrisp65]

It's a subject that fascinates me, people's grasp of geography and their surroundings.

I've been working with a guy recently and it's been a revelation. He's in his late 40's and he recently went to London for the first time ever and was absolutely knocked out by the fact, in his words, 'you can just walk right up to these places I've seen on the telly'. He couldn't believe the old BBC TV Centre was across the road from a tube station, he thought that was 'mad'.

Only this week, in dividing up work, I found out he's never been further north than Leeds and that was just once, for a meeting.

He's lived in Cardiff all his life and never been to a local beach.

This same guy has two Spanish beach holidays every year, like clockwork. 

But then, I live in a town where there are 5 or 6 different beaches in walking distance from my house. Yet my missus works with families in town and part of the project is an annual trip to the 'seaside' for the kids on their books. Every year, there are kids that are 4, 5 or 6 years old that have never been on the beach before.

If you've got kids but can't get around to walking for 20 minutes to the coast when it's been pretty much in the same place day in day out for a few years, I'd be surprised if you can place Ukraine on a map. 

[Mark Albrighton]

My geographical knowledge could be better. I couldn’t name all the cities in the UK for instance, I just tried to think of as many as I could in five minutes and didn’t get close (damn you, Ely).

I’m “ok” at pointing to countries on the map, the approximate location anyway. I always think Poland is closer to the UK than it actually is for some reason. I tend to group countries together, I know say Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are near each other, but I’d probably get them mixed up on a map.

[mjmooney]

As far as UK geography goes, I'd also blame satnav. People don't plan journeys with maps anymore, they just follow the instructions - no 'mental picture' of whereabouts they are. 

[Mark Albrighton]

I don’t remember ever really being taught cities and their location if I’m honest, my main memories of geography at school were things like the long shore drift and stuff like that.

Probably not an exaggeration to say the majority of my knowledge on towns, cities and countries has been informed by football.

[sharkyvilla]

My local geography is awful, largely because I don't have a car so rarely go very far.  Most of my general geography knowledge is down to watching lots of quiz shows.

[bickster]

Erm, you lot appear to be talking about topography not geography

[Mark Albrighton]

7 minutes ago, bickster said:

Erm, you lot appear to be talking about topography not geography

Well I don’t know much about geography. And I don’t know much topography.

FWIW, I don’t know much about algebra, I don’t even know what a slide rule is for.

But I do know that one and one is two and if this one could be with you, what a wonderful world this would be.

[bickster]

 

[Stevo985]

On 08/12/2018 at 02:40, ThunderPower_14 said:

What are we looking at here?

[Mandy Lifeboats]

4 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What are we looking at here?

I would guess that it's the actual size/shape of countries rather than how they appear on the standard map. 

I guess that because the equatorial regions are displayed more accurately than the poles?

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What are we looking at here?

I'm fairly confident it's the Mercator projection of the world i.e. the traditional maps everyone has been taught vs the actual real relative size of the countries. The Mercator Projection really stretches countries the closer you get to the poles

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

I'm fairly confident it's the Mercator projection of the world i.e. the traditional maps everyone has been taught vs the actual real relative size of the countries. The Mercator Projection really stretches countries the closer you get to the poles

I thought that, but some of them are astonishingly small compared to the projection. 

 

Greenland is about a quarter of the size 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

I thought that, but some of them are astonishingly small compared to the projection. 

 

Greenland is about a quarter of the size 

Yep, here's another non-animated map that shows the same

[Stevo985]

That’s mental

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

That’s mental

Here's a whole bunch of different projections

[ThunderPower_14]

Yeah as posted, it's the Mercator projection with countries scaled down to their actual relative size. The poles are enormously stretched out on the Mercator.

 

What I find the most interesting about it is how absolutely massive Africa is compared to what you'd perceive from looking at the most common map projection.

[Stevo985]

9 hours ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Yeah as posted, it's the Mercator projection with countries scaled down to their actual relative size. The poles are enormously stretched out on the Mercator.

 

What I find the most interesting about it is how absolutely massive Africa is compared to what you'd perceive from looking at the most common map projection.

Indeed. It barely moves on that projection.

 

So are the countries magnified just because of adjusting for curvature etc? Or are they made bigger just to make countries seem bigger?

[bickster]

5 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Indeed. It barely moves on that projection.

 

So are the countries magnified just because of adjusting for curvature etc? Or are they made bigger just to make countries seem bigger?

Its because the poles are really a point, not a flat plane the same width as the equator, the closer to the poles you are the greater the exaggeration

[mjmooney]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

Its because the poles are really a point, not a flat plane the same width as the equator, the closer to the poles you are the greater the exaggeration

Yep. Although it also has the fortunate effect of making us Europeans (sorry, us British AND Europeans) feel better about ourselves, and less scared of Africa.