[NetBehaviour] The map gap.

[info]

The map gap.

As the world's oldest printed atlas sells for £2m, our impression of 
what the Earth looks like has changed almost beyond recognition. But 
even now, it's hard to find a truly accurate picture of our planet.

Looking down at a map, the viewer thinks their eyes are taking in a 
snapshot of the Earth. But are they?

Between the oldest and the most modern incarnation of the printed atlas 
there are 500 years of mapping history filled with debate over how to 
represent the world. How to show countries' size, relief and relations? 
How to project an almost-spherical surface on to a flat one, but keep it 
accurate?

"If you peel an orange, you can't lay it flat and there's never an 
answer to that," says Steve Chilton, chair of the Society of Cartographers.

And that is the problem: map-makers have always compromised for their 
art - tweaking scale, distance or area to paste the world down. Making 
Greenland loom large, or squashing Africa to a narrow frame in the process.

The oldest printed atlas, Claudius Ptolemaneus' Cosmographia, has sold 
at auction for £2.1m. The buyer paid not for a good grasp of the world, 
but for a picture of three continents, with England butting the Bay of 
Biscay and Scotland floating in the German Sea.

more...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5413010.stm