Conrad Hackett 
Mercator size vs. true country size
by Neil Kaye
by Neil Kaye
Pauline von Hellermann@conradhackett it’s incredible how they got away with this for so long. HOW did Mercator ever get accepted as a useful representation, and why do we keep on using it? No doubt due to US/eurocentrism and geopolitics etc. but would love to know more about actual history
Paul Botts@pvonhellermannn @conradhackett It was created in the 16th century for the purpose of navigating oceans on a ship, for which purpose it works better than any other. Had nothing to do with US/eurocentrism or geopolitics. (E.g. at that time obviously North America and Russia were not considered to be "white", etc.)
The best representation of our globular world is a globe which is what I grew up with. Trying to project a globe's surface onto flat paper will always have one distortion or another.
@conradhackett @PaulTheFossil thank you and yes, sorry, I realise what I said was pretty stupid. I did mean more how it just lived on as our main map for so long, it as you say even that probably more has more to do with projecting onto a flat surface rather than politics