Perspectives

I came across this and found it interesting. If the maps in use to portray size, population, geography and influence were right sized (not distorted as almost all of them do), this is what they would look like:

There are a whole bunch of maps, including comparison of Greenland and Mexico, Russia, Europe, etc., that reveal just how horribly distorted our perception has been on the sizes of these countries. Worth taking a look at (Twitter link).

Obviously, many countries are far smaller then we have imagined. Africa clearly is the largest country in the world (not China, not Russia) with South America taking second place. But neither Africa nor South America exert anywhere near the influence economically, politically, militarily as China, Russia or the United States, not even close.

Now consider population density and where that occurs. India doesn’t look so big now, but it contains some of the most dense populations on the planet.

A whole lot of other issues will then raise your head (and your awareness) about just how unbalanced our perceptions actually are about other countries.

Here’s something closer to home – this is how Americans perceive the United States and the Republican / Democrat influence:

But here is the same map right-sized:

The two maps present RADICALLY different assumptions about voter preferences and who is influencing what. They’re not even close, but the lower map is far more accurate then the top map.

The media loves to distort their claims, but this isn’t just simple distortion, it’s an outright lie. This is why perception matters, and accurate perception matters even more.