provisional and that we cannot wait to have certainty about every fact
before we act.
DAN SMITH
LONDON, JULY 2012
15
THE PROBLEM WITH MAPS
The aim of this atlas is to look at the world through the lens of world
problems. That means mapping those issues onto the world – and there we
encounter the standard problem of atlases. Because the world is virtually a
sphere, it cannot be accurately depicted on a flat, rectangular piece of paper.
Peel an orange and flatten out the skin and the problem is immediately
understandable. Choices and compromises must accordingly be made –
choices, essentially, about how to be inaccurate. These choices are packaged
into the projection of the world that is utilised in drawing the map.
The most widely seen world maps use projections that retain the shapes
of the continents and islands, and therefore wildly distort their size. The
first and most famous of these projections is the one developed by the
16th-century Flemish cartographer, Gerardus Mercator. Using that projection,
the sizes of regions far from the equator are exaggerated. Thus Europe looks
bigger than it is, while China and India look smaller. The most notorious
distortion of area in Mercator is that Greenland looks similar in size to
Africa, which is actually 14 times bigger than Greenland. Mercator’s choice of
projection was determined in part by his wish, as the sub-title of the original
atlas put it, to produce an aid for navigators. Navigation was at the forefront
of Europe’s advance into the world from the 15th through the 18th centuries.
It was the scientific precondition for sailing to far-flung destinations for trade
and conquest.
There have been numerous attempts over succeeding centuries to correct the
illustrative weakness in the Mercator projection. The best known today is the
one proposed in 1973 by Arno Peters, drawing on work in the 19th century
by a Scottish clergyman, James Gall. The Peters or Gall-Peters projection
is more accurate on the size of different regions but distorts the world’s
appearance in other ways. There are geographers who believe the depiction
of the world on rectangular pieces of paper should be stopped.
The projection employed in this atlas makes a different set of choices and
compromises. It is the Winkel’s Tripel, first used in 1913, compromising
between the three elements of area, direction, and distance. Distortion is
not completely eliminated but is minimized. The curved lines of latitude and
longitude make the projection
useless for navigators, but the
result is fairer and reasonably
familiar, especially since it was
adopted by the US National
Geographic Society in 1998.
Below: Myriad's
world map based
on the Winkel
Tripel projection,
and a cartogram
based on
population size.
16
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The atlas is the work of a team. Jannet King has been the editor, assiduous
and detailed in her work, and respectful of a wayward author’s prerogatives.
Isabelle Lewis provides the basic cartographic design work without which
the whole atlas approach would be impossible, and throughout showed her
talent for coming up with innovative ways of displaying the information.
The overall look and feel of the atlas is down to the design coordination of
Corinne Pearlman. Candida Lacey ran and coordinated the Myriad team and
was always a joy to work with. Elizabeth Sarney was an extremely diligent
research assistant without whom the basic research for the atlas could not
have been done; she also offered insightful comment on the draft layouts for
displaying the data. Nicolle Nguyen made sure I stayed up to par on my day
job and was another source of comment and feedback on draft designs. Ilaria
Bianchi and Selena Mirams were a responsive focus group at a critical stage.
Åsa Frankenberg provided thoughtful reflections on the look and functioning
of the spreads, and was a source of strength throughout. Felix Smith-
Frankenberg reminded me of what life is about at moments when I thought
it only consisted of missed deadlines. I thank all of you unreservedly.
PHOTOGRAPHS
The publishers are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce their
photographs on the following pages: 18 © Mark Henley / Panos Pictures;
30 Mexico City: Milan Klusacek / iStockphoto; New York: Candida Lacey; London:
Ivan Mateev / iStockphoto; Paris: JB Russell / Panos Pictures; Lagos: George Osodi
/ Panos Pictures; Sao Paulo: AM29 / iStockphoto; 31 Istanbul: George Georgiou /
Panos Pictures; Karachi: Giacomo Pirozzi / Panos Pictures; Shanghai: Manfred Leiter;
Tokyo: Wikimedia Commons / Chris 73; Jakarta: Martin Adler / Panos Pictures;
Cairo: ictor/ iStockphoto; Mumbai: Candida Lacey; Tehran: Frank van den Bergh /
iStockphoto; 36 Ian Teh / Panos Pictures; 56 Iva Zimova / Panos Pictures; 74 Philippe
Lissac / Panos Pictures; 88 Teun Voeten / Panos Pictures; 104 Alvaro Leiva / Panos
Pictures; 120 Dieter Telemans / Panos Pictures.
Below: The world
map based on the
Mercator, Gall and
Peters projections.
17
PART ONE
WHO WE
ARE
This is the age of more, most, and never before. There are more people, living
in more countries, and more of us living in cities, than at any time in the past.
It is only 200 years ago – less than a blink of an eye in the timescale of the
planet, and not much more than a blink in the timescale