The difficulty with the Mercator and Winkel Tripel projections is that distance discrepancies become a concern when one gets closer to the poles. However, Gott, Robert Vanderbei, and David Goldberg received a score of 0.881 with this new map. To date, two map projections widely used in reference books and atlases are the Mercator projection with a score of 8.296 and the Winkel Tripel flat map projection with a 4.563 score. “The map can be printed front-and-back on a single magazine page, ready for the reader to cut out.” Unlike other rectangular maps, “this is a map you can hold in your hand,” said Gott. To see all of our new map, you simply have to flip it over,” said Gott. To see all of the globe, you have to rotate it.

“Our map is actually more like the globe than other flat maps.

Unlike existing flat maps, the new round globe does not reduce or supersize the extent of certain seas or land surfaces. Since the Earth is spherical, how can it be adequately represented on a 2D map? New research suggests flattening Earth into two pancakes, one representing the Northern Hemisphere and the other the Southern, with the equator running around the perimeter.Īccording to the study’s authors, these two “pancakes” constitute the most precise flat map of the Earth ever created. Although it is two-sided, the map may display both sides of the world without the limits of being two-dimensional.

A new map was created by a team of map specialists led by J Richard Gott, a Princeton professor of astrophysics.

Accurate flat earth map