Why every world map is wrong - Kayla Wolf

Dig into the inaccuracies of flat maps and how different map designs can shift our point of view.
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Fourteen Greenlands could fit in Africa- but you wouldn’t guess it from most maps of the world. The fact is, every world map humans have ever made is wrong. Actually, it’s impossible to make a flat map of the whole spherical world 100% right. So why do we bother with these inaccurate maps at all? Kayla Wolf explores how even the simplest changes in map design can shift our point of view.
Lesson by Kayla Wolf, directed by Hernando Bahamon, Globizco Studios.
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View full lesson: ed.ted.com/lessons/why-every-...
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Animator's website: globizcostudios.com/
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Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! LunarQueen, Iza, Brian Elieson, Paul, Grayson Garbarino, Oge O, Weronika Falkowska, Stefano Esposito, Jan M. Brandt, Harshal, Nevin Spoljaric, Christine, Yvonne Feijoo, Sid Chanpuriya, Arjay Arcinue Dineros, RAD, Anoom Yasmin, Laura Johnson, Anoop Varghese, David Yastremski, Noah Webb, Zoë Tulip, B, Erica Guerrero, Richard Manklow, Roberto Chena, Luke Pisano, Andrea Gordon, Aleksandar Donev, Brendan and Nicole's summer job, Ryan Weiler, Jesse Lira, Ezekiel Raui, Itay Levi, Cameron Chakraverty, Petr Vacek, Rhys Patterson, Dennis, Margaret King, Olivia Fu, Katrina Adams, Regina Post, Mary Collins, Kari Teffeau, clumsybunnie, Adam Leos, Jeremy Laurin, Cindy Lai, Liz and Hannah Nommé.

[@joeg2jerry20]

Big sphere not fit on small rectangle. Simple.

[@wxylmnopqrstuwxy7511]

lol🤣😭🤣😭🤣😭🤣🤣

[@prakash_77]

That's what Hulk would say 👀

[@marxiewasalittlegirl]

Why did I watch 5 mins video then, this comment is enough

[@ooghaboogha4362]

@Kyle a ball

[@avdhootgole2773]

Thats it

[@manishsapkal2641]

"An interrupted psuedo-cylindrical equal area projection.......What does that mean ? Not important" That was a relief for me 😅

[@mgA757]

Yea😂👍

[@badmintongo4832]

CONFORMAL FIELD THEORY

[@tteottaninguiayami]

That... Whatever it is, will now surely be the answer in the next TedEd Video

[@oliverpepit1354]

I wish my teachers would ask: "What does that mean? Not important."

[@speeedslayer]

Man ! Now that's an underrated comment .

[@edeworabraham2761]

That will save alot of time

[@proloycodes]

42 mins ago!

[@ivanmabayag]

This is my new mantra.

[@yedukrishnansl7540]

I wish my parents say that about my marks😇

[@overcookedwater1947]

"...because the earth is ROUND..." *multiple flat earthers are typing*

[@vincentwiddershoven2122]

Ofcourse the world is round! Just like a pancake! 😁😁😁

[@CalvinK300]

Don’t forget the beveled edge!

[@muhammadridho7680]

But the NASA evidence is just a cgi *Flat eaters intensifies*

[@NKY5223]

@@muhammadridho7680 *Eats flats*

[@jagpreetsingh6711]

(if you know the ttg reference:) It is not flat,It Is a pancake.

[@skarlet_toki9242]

I always wondered why Greenland looked so different in every other map.

[@checcmac8693]

I wondered why Greenland is iced?

[@ParthPatel-hl2hj]

In the map, greenland looks as big as africa lol

[@spleens4200]

@@checcmac8693 because vikings

[@Music-if1nv]

I was also wondering why Greenland wasnt a continent by the size it is in the map, it looks bigger than Australia!

[@kingsingh2616]

@@ParthPatel-hl2hj here in India, it looks smaller than Australia lol

[@dailydoseofmedicinee]

In fact, a map can only be accurate in one of four domains: shape, area, distance, or direction👍

[@kartikadewi3270]

Just like the 4 horsemen

[@a.kcodes1761]

yep i agree

[@star_duck]

The four Nations lived in harmony

[@truthseeker7815]

@UCUv657QlyBhAADuHSOufekA, only the Avatar, master of all elements, could stop them

[@Gamesaucer]

@@truthseeker7815 You mean the globe, master of all four domains?

[@RainierKine]

I set my home as the centre of a map projection generator. Everything is relative to me, problem solved!

[@Nerdyone1000]

Japan’s way ahead of ya buddy

[@amalirfan]

Serious Choy

[@ilovecairns5181]

No?

[@RainierKine]

@@ilovecairns5181 *gasp* Hopefully, you live on the edge of my map

[@JjMn1000]

Yay

[@rajatbalraj7954]

This was a very different style of narration than what Ted-Ed normally does, much more casual one might say and it was rather fresh! The animation and content was awesome as always!❤️❤️

[@caitlinpolius7404]

the person who is voicing this is really good at expressing and stressing words and information. Greatly appreciated how you kept me watching !!

[@pabloyotrosbichos]

Ted ed is just destroying my reality and reconstructing it

[@opienti]

congrats on the heart

[@anatine_banana_69]

Congratulations dude

[@kingofblox2976]

Is that something worse congratulating? lol

[@vishalbhowmick2706]

Huh reality...

[@vale3242]

Just like me with everything except sometimes I can't reconstruct it

[@imiss1d968]

Reason : Earth is 3-D Map is 2-D Save time

[@kartikadewi3270]

3 Dimensional googles like 3D blockbuster Movie theaters

[@whitenoise3447]

I already know this but I still wanna watch the video cuz I think about this all the time XD

[@rj5848]

The cube is 3d but you can make it 2d but making a sphere 2d is kind of impossible as you know pi is a irrational number which causes problem in making a sphere to a 2d figure cause the calculation won’t be accurate but we will get close to perfect but never perfect

[@dofelf3845]

aren't the pen lines and circles used for maps 1D??

[@567secret]

Well you got it wrong, it's not to do with the dimensions, but because you're trying to fit a curved plane to a flat plane, you'd see the same thing with a negatively curved plane (a hyperbolic plane), and that doesn't even link back to itself.

[@ishanjain922]

Props to you guys for educating the general public about miscellaneous topics in a wide array of subjects for free. This video was really informative 👏

[@sciwizShreyasKulkarni]

True , but vsauce had covered this exact topic 10 years ago

[@mgA757]

@@sciwizShreyasKulkarni Thanks for sharing some good channel I didn't know before. I won't have understood anything 10 years back... i was a little kid then. 🤗

[@TeamCloud.]

I already knew this, but it’s just an interesting topic, and I like animations lol.

[@sciwizShreyasKulkarni]

@@mgA757 you're welcome 😁

[@siwong3368]

At 2:04 he has deal with it glasses 🎉

[@jinhyolee8442]

I thought this was gonna be about political disagreements on land.

[@shivannapv4262]

Same lol

[@kartikadewi3270]

Whoa ? Lands still have politics....?? Godammnit

[@noyasssh7621]

Johnny harris fans

[@Krystoff04111]

Nope. Just another lecture on whiteness. 😒

[@17RedKnight]

@@Krystoff04111 so we're just going to pretend that race didn't have any role in human history? Cause it shouldnt come to a surprise that much of it was influenced by race

[@bingbonghafu]

I love Kayla’s humorous writing style!

[@will__mem9rno]

" an interrupted pseudo-cylindrical equal area projection " Me: Wow that's a fancy phrase, what is it? "not important" Me: (ಠ_ಠ) Jokes aside the narrator of this video deserves a raise!

[@alphabladelm2011]

That she does.

[@pkmkb]

idk but it might be the thing where they put a source of light inside a globe and put a cylinder outside the globe such that when light is turned on, the globe projects its content on the curved surface of the cylinder and when that curved surface is opened up to make a rectangal, you have your map. i dont know if i am right but the term cylinder and projection made me think so.

[@mgA757]

@@pkmkb I liked your thought. I never thought that.

[@caminstol2473]

the script-writer is the real one that needs a raise

[@KennyBky92]

Yeah, an 18 cent raise...

[@PabloCarbonari]

I just LOVE this series of animated videos! Many people (companies) were doing it before, but TED just nailed it. Congrats and keep up the good work!

[@elenas3571]

The first thing I do when I see a map of the world is check to make sure New Zealand is included.

[@philiphudson6679]

x+1 :7:0 :4 /2 /8 /6 /3 /9 :9 :4 W/h/~a: s / a : p~p~..

[@philiphudson6679]

Do well let him know I referred you to him...his strategies are top notch ✅...and don't forget to smash the like button....

[@elvye2swehe]

Same for Trinidad and Tobago hahahaha

[@leafwhy]

Sometimes I wonder, how people were able to draw maps in the ancient times without seeing the world from above?

[@174b9]

They draw coastlines.

[@Dark-ki7lf]

Brain... You know that distance btw sun and earth was known in ancient books in Greece and Indian civilizations? Its just crazy how good imagination, calculation those people used to have

[@casparvoncampenhausen5249]

They didn't draw maps they way we draw them, instead they'd draw a place, the vague direction you had to go to get to the next place and write the distance in-between the two. It's like when you explain someone how to get somewhere (go 5 minutes in that direction and turn right at the crossing). In that example you also don't use a bird's eye view, you just give directions and rough time estimates

[@bthorner33]

Guessing

[@paintwithtihani9926]

I’m intrigued how did Ptolemy came up with the grid and longitude latitude idea back then that’s soooo awesome considering they didn’t have satellite back then

[@groundsymphony]

I love this casual way of explaining, not too rigid and formal that diminishes the fun and excitement

[@prism2451]

3:21 Well that's one way to go to Nigeria 😂

[@danko238]

Map men, map men, map, map, map, men, men

[@Musiphymatic]

The animation, the content, the narration & the background music all are top notch♥️♥️. Keep u the good work ted ed

[@sofieledbetter98]

This video has amazing, excellent, incredible subtitles! And I really, really appreciate that. Otherwise also a fantastically informative and entertaining video!

[@fireflamefine625]

I don't know who looks at the size of things and imagines that the larger ones are more important than the smaller ones.

[@casparvoncampenhausen5249]

That's what he said

[@girlsquad224]

That's crazy! Lol Never thought of that honestly. 'Cause growing up, it was actually told to us in school that maps aren't an accurate representation of the planet and primarily used for navigatory purposes.

[@pangolimazul6055]

Say that to people who complain about the size of their... higth. In all honestly,it does play a role, size is considered, globaly, as a symbol of superiority, be it having a bigher hight, having a bigger empire or nowadays a bigger economy. Even just having a map focused on europe already sends a message. As someone from a third world nation( Brazil) I can say that it does change the perspective of most, mostly uneducated, people. That said, in this particular case, I'm not sure if a lot can be done,taking into consideration the map does need to have a center somewhere. That said, I don't think mercator is the best map for learning purposes as, for understanding the world, you don't need to have a map that has straight lines as the shorter route, but you can benefit from knowing what nations are bigger, even more so when we talk history and geopolitics

[@rohanshah6882]

@@casparvoncampenhausen5249 😂😂😂

[@PatrickLofstrom]

Land mass equals resources, which means power. This fueled the race for colonialism, and the Mercator Map unwittingly reinforced the perceived image of dominance.

[@RedShoesSmith]

This is why everyone should walk around with a pocket globe, map issues solved.

[@artiir4200]

Huh

[@craftah]

but if you walk straight on the globe it looks like you are not walking straight and that looks weird

[@ElliotWright]

Thank you for transcribing and expanding upon the video that MapMen did on this :P

[@saccharine2384]

The narration was easy to follow, it was quite amusing. Thanks for making me curious about almost everything.

[@monasaad7611]

I actually love this and I read it before in an encyclopedia and it's fun to remember it every once in a while , love your animations !

[@gettingshotsomeonesgonnapa8635]

@Gael salty much?

[@thijsvanderlem343]

This is really helpful love to you guys!

[@ultimatebishoujo29]

I agree

[@CatReynoldsMusic]

I learned so much from the video, and loved how it made me laugh too :-) such great content!

[@MarcoAurelioGondim]

The video is outstanding and became even more compelling with all the excellent animations and enthusiastic narration. This is the video I needed to conclude the lesson on cartographic projections. 🙂

[@OsamasStory]

1:29 When she said “because the earth is round” my mind instantly went to the flat earthers

[@DrRank]

Back in my day, maps had a river, a lake, and a tall mountain, and that's all we needed.

[@utubedano]

This blew my mind 🤯 I kinda had an idea in the back of my head but never dug deep. thank you TED-Ed! 👌👍🙏

[@redcaramel2222]

The narration of this one is so fun and engaging! I like it.

[@Luffy_wastaken]

2:44 One of the funniest narrator so far😂😂

[@labyrinth7129]

Very slick animations!

[@suprabrajbhandari548]

There are so many videos about this and I still watch it

[@sabitazizov3440]

Reminds me of our Geography lessons. Thank you so much TedEd.🤗🤗🤗

[@vng]

@TED-Ed The video may cause a slight misunderstanding with regard to great circle navigation. It sounds like the curved line on a flat map for great circle navigation mentioned around 1:40 becomes a straight line under Mercator projection (mentioned around 2:12) but on a Mercator projection, a great circle is still a curved line. Mercator projection just allows people to get from point A to point B by following a single compass bearing, but the result is a longer route than the great circle one.

[@oliviacaddell]

I love this narrorator, and I think this vid was amazing. It was cool how it was explained.

[@ahmedshahhussain804]

I liked how the narration was fast nd clever. Its something u don't see tedED do. Its good to see a change

[@jamunaprasad5093]

The video quality and commentary is amazing.

[@paleoph6168]

Imagine this problem but with mapping the prehistoric past, especially Pangea.

[@OsamasStory]

In school they should teach kids the difference between the real map and the fake map & why we use the fake one I had to learn that by my self

[@shreyasjv4877]

Kudos to the awesome narrator! Great job on the animation as well!

[@stephen_boss]

I always thought about this! Thanks Ted!!

[@CuriousTrotter]

I absolutely loved this video! The animation was amazing, and more of this narrator please!

[@louckykoneko]

I never noticed just how distorted maps are until I tried putting together a 3d globe puzzle. I was amazed at how tiny the USA really is, especially when compared to South America.

[@g-vision1282]

Um...hello, you're right! Btw, South America is a continent. The USA is a country that's a PART of a continent called North America. Just an fyi.

[@hadjerswift4519]

I loved the narration both funny and educational 💕

[@shebarashid3696]

With all respect to all voices of Ted ed but this voice is the best it catches our ears with different modulations of voice at the same time keeping it to the point

[@marmar17]

I’ve always been interested in maps so I immediately clicked on this video when I saw it.

[@muhammeduzair9871]

I love the way she narrates it, she makes it fun.

[@RodeyMcG]

That's the most diplomatic discussion of the Gall Peters map! Great video!

[@rajnivashist8290]

Very informative 👏 Stunning work ...💖

[@prakashkulkarni1373]

only Ted Ed map is correct all others are flawed!!

[@ganeshprasad4929]

FACTS!🥂

[@shantanu9393]

World map exists.. Ted-Ed: I'mma about to end this man's whole career

[@random20000]

Why cant it be a women? 😠

[@fanteasy7399]

@@random20000 why not

[@Tannyboydegen]

The humor in the video is soooooooooooo good!

[@abbaskabir333]

Loved the narration! 👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼

[@476429]

First, they should have covered the Robinson projection. It's a good compromise and gets the landmasses closer to their real sizes. National Geographic uses the Robinson projection. Second, creating a new projection because you believe some people feel superior based on the Mercator is just nuts. Create accurate projections because they get you closer to the truth, not because of what you think some people may think about current projections.

[@kohterg3713]

My thoughts exactly... the historical revisionsm they are pulling up is messing with science and that's a huge problem for all mankind.

[@marije179]

I didn't not that the Mercator projection eliminated the turning-thing-traight-line problem! Wow! Learned something new today!

[@TaiFerret]

I especially like the interrupted projections such as the Goode Homolocine and the Dymaxion. I also really like the Peirce quincuncial, which is a square shape and tileable. I once edited it such that Antarctica isn't cut to pieces.

[@an3_omx]

I like the Goode Homolocine quite a bit as well!

[@bscorvin]

I know ya’ll probably won’t be making another video on geography / cartography so soon, but it might be cool to discuss in the future the fact that getting exact measurements of shorelines is impossible.

[@jonathantoothbreaker8786]

i’m literally a cartographer why am i watching this?

[@Weretyu7777]

Because you like maps and videos about them, perhaps?

[@martim2810]

awesome video, as always :)

[@earthling_parth]

This was amazingly well done for a 5 minute video 👌

[@jassimkoya]

I like the new narrator's voice! 🙂 Oh and brilliant content as always.

[@dhruvbhatt3764]

This problem can also be used to demonstrate the curvature of the Earth to people who claim the Earth is flat...

[@xavierthomas5923]

hi there. Am a fellow curve earther

[@Neet-gl5ch]

me too

[@philiphudson6679]

Thanks for your wonderful comments and ratings. I really appreciate ❤️. I'll advise you to invest in crypto like I do and make good profits as it's currently the most profitable investment after Telsa.

[@philiphudson6679]

x+1 :7:0 :4 /2 /8 /6 /3 /9 :9 :4 W/h/~a: s / a : p~p~

[@philiphudson6679]

Do well let him know I referred you to him...his strategies are top notch ✅...and don't forget to smash the like button..

[@jeremyahagan]

Awesome script and narration for an great video

[@connor2953]

My favorite channel. Thanks

[@nahruz.w3044]

Wait i thought this was "Map Men" video but it was actually ted-ed. A welcome surprise nonetheless

[@adityaprakash9548]

Love from wrong map believer♥️

[@whoisharo4689]

Everyone is complimenting the narration. I agree with them! Stressing certain words, her reading style and attitude is perfect. Great for kids to learn too. Good job.

[@getpriyanka]

I have always imagined why the map is the way it is, and not up side down, because even if it was made that way, it would make no difference.

[@Archius_09]

Ted-ed has got the best animators in it's studios

[@neil9835]

True

[@shivannapv4262]

Wait....your profile picture.......I remember seeing it somewhere but I cannot exactly remember what it is

[@Archius_09]

@@shivannapv4262 can you name the channel where you viewed my comment is it shulkercraft?

[@neil9835]

@@shivannapv4262 who me?

[@shivannapv4262]

Well, you guys either you guys changed your profile images or I have terrible memory but Idk who or what the profile image I was referring to lol

[@thequestions7013]

Flat earthers with their reverse logic be like: It is impossible to make accurate map on flat surface but it can be made accurately through a globe. So, earth is flat.

[@antoniousai1989]

It's like what happened with Heliocentrism and Geocentrism. People used to explain the stars and planets movements with extremely complex mathematics but then Tycho Brahe, Copernico and Galileo argued (and proved with data) that the math was much simpler by putting the Sun in the center: because the Sun is in the center (technically it isn't, both centers of the orbits are inside the Sun, but whatever).

[@thequestions7013]

@@antoniousai1989 What you are trying to say actually...

[@spark_city9639]

I was waiting for this video after failing geography. *Thank Ted-Ed*

[@chemistproffatima]

Wow!!!! Great vedio as usual

[@akshaychauhan4346]

Ted-Ed finally made a humorous video nice start.

[@sketchyskies8531]

The people who spent time making it: Am I a joke to you?

[@leonguyen896]

0:40 I love the not-so-subtle shade there

[@yess.6558]

The playfull tone of her voice makes this video very fun. I think in general the monotone and straightforwardness is needed in TED-Ed. But this king of change is quite nice every once in a while and kinda makes it more engaging.

[@eethannnn]

TLDR: Maps are 2d, and the world is 3d, so, in order to make the world into a flat space, you need to distort it in some way.

[@simranmalhotra7364]

This was a very different style of narration than what Ted-Ed normally does, much more casual one might say and it was rather fresh!! The person voicing this is really good at expressing and stressing words and information. The animation and content was awesome as always!❤️❤️

[@Penguinmanereikel]

Loving the art here!

[@kaylawolf1993]

Very informative ty!

[@justlimonika]

I have an idea.... Let's flatten the Earth so we could create an accurate map of it.

[@dakshanbalaramesh]

Like a pancake? That's already on the UN Flag 😂

[@nHans]

Good idea, but you're a few thousand years late. Euclid and other ancient Greek mathematicians have already implemented it. It's called Euclidean Geometry-"Geometry" literally means "earth measurements"-and it assumes that the Earth's surface is flat. We've been using it for thousands of years now. We teach it to all our kids, then complain when some of them grow up believing that the Earth is flat.

[@joszsz]

That soft tone at 3:39 "could this be... the perfect map? Well, no" - I love it!😂

[@vismivijayan6361]

Really nice narration

[@Leto85]

I remember the old video game The Game of Intelligent Life from 1999. In there the ever changing world map was viewed as a pealed orange with blue for water, yellow for land and gray for the areas that didn't exist but were needed to review a sphere on a flat surface. When an animal moved on the Earth and had to 'cross' one of those gray areas, the animal simply disappeared only to instantly reappear on the adjecent plot of land. It was as simple as it could be. And in my opinion, real life maps could be cut out that way.

[@rohanfernando21]

The energy in this video is electric.

[@nicholasheimann4629]

So with map projections instead of "get woke go broke" it's "get woke get lost".

[@xanthippe5902]

I like this narrator. She has fun with it. Really brings personality to the lessons

[@darthhodges]

I remember seeing something where children from different nations drew a map of the world. In almost every case their own nation was larger than reality while others were reduced. This is entirely to be expected both from a psychological standpoint and when you consider the nature of most people's education. American students will spend far more time on American history than the history of any African or Asian nation, while Australians or Rwandans will spend far more time on their own nations than on the nations farthest from them.

[@ZachWalz]

I think the Map Men said it best: a map in a classroom is not meant to teach kids navigation, it’s meant to give an understanding of the world around them.

[@shaunm6383]

I see I've found another Map Men fan. Good on you for watching quality KZbin content.

[@doomddudc6440]

Ted ed:Maps are not everytime accurate. People : Yeah that's why we have GPS.... 😎😂😂..... Just kidding Nice information TED-ED.

[@Lordeevee]

So that explains how I miraculously wound up here instead of the virtual lab website.

[@lakshmimohan6467]

I loved this narration 😀👍

[@midimusicforever]

Flat earthers will get so triggered!