this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
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Mildly Interesting
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I'm sure that Google will quickly change their map projections from Pseudo-Mercator to Equal Earth projection as quickly as they changed the names of the bodies of water because President orange cheeto said so... right?... Riiiight?
Web Mercator is a special kind of abomination, even down to the way the map is cropped to be exactly square. But it is probably the most suitable for navigation, as Mercator itself was designed specifically for it.
Buildings, streets and map features would be more distorted under Equal Earth projection than they already are with Web Mercator. Web Mercator also has the benefit that the cardinal directions are always straight respective to the XY grid, even though the Y direction is non linear.
There is no perfect way of flattening a 3D spheroid into a 2D map, sadly.
It would be funny if they built their entire system on one projection.