Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. World maps distort size and shape by design. Learn why projections matter and how they shape global understanding. (CREDIT: ...

Greenland appears much larger than it actually is on most world maps, thanks to the Mercator projection, a centuries-old map style. A recent study reveals how this distortion influences our perception ...

Maps sit quietly in classrooms, on news websites and inside phone screens. They look settled and precise, but the world they show is always slightly bent out of shape. Because the Earth is round, any ...

The Mercator world map, long a fixture in classrooms globally, makes the European Union appear almost as large as Africa. In reality, Africa is more than seven times bigger. It is a distortion that ...