"Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality"

      The Mercator map has created many false ideas of the world. This map has created European Imperialistic attitudes and ethnic bias against third world countries. This map was created in 1569 as a tool for navigating the oceans for Europeans sailors. This map is not accurate because it enlarges land masses at the poles to create straight geographic lines so it makes it easier to cross an ocean. This means that the map is showing continents that are out of proportion and much bigger than their actual size. For example, Greenland is shown as the same size as Africa but is actually 14 times smaller in square miles. Also, South America is almost double the size of Europe in square miles but is shown bigger than South America. Germany is shown to be in the middle of the map but is actually in the northern hemisphere of the earth.
     Social Equality plays a role in the disproportions of the Mercator map because we subconsciously associate size with importance and power. For example, if third world countries are misrepresented and shown smaller than their actual size, usually they are valued less. Western civilization is shown in the northern hemisphere on the top of the map which gives it more importance. They are suggesting to fix this by physically putting the map upside down so the northern hemisphere is on the bottom and the southern hemisphere is on the top. If you use the Peters Projection map instead of the Mercator map it can minimize discrimination against third world countries and encourage social equality.