The Mercator projection of the world map is suited for marine navigation and once so commonplace that generations of schoolchildren thought Greenland was as large as Africa. Though out of fashion, it yet has its uses. Drew Roos's Mercator Extreme shows how wonderful and how nuts its distortions can get. Above is a Mercator projection of the world's surface poled to Pittsburgh, PA.
The map you see is the Mercator projection. But unlike a standard Mercator projection, you can substitute any point on earth as the "pole". (The initial view shows Boston as the pole point) Furthermore, this map cuts off much, much closer to the poles than normal, allowing you to see many more orders of magnitude of distortion. Because this yields a map several times taller than it is wide, it is shown sideways from its usual orientation.
Previously:
• The Mercator Puzzle reminds you how deceptive maps can be
• World map as a musical score
• Maps lie: countries that fit inside other countries
• Boston school district switches to a more accurate world map, blows kids' minds