Foreshadowed on Mastodon in January, the horror that Daniel Huffman has created is now upon us. Behold the Asymmetric Monstrosity projection, an equal-area—yes! every part of it—projection that grafts together pieces of the Equal Earth, cylindrical equal-area, three pieces of Mollweide and five sinusoidals (each on different central meridians) into a patchwork atrocity with an uneven graticule and interrupted labels. Stop twitching long enough to read Daniel’s explanation as to why this was perpetrated:

First off, it was fun and interesting for me to think about how projections can be glued together. This map is a Frankenstein’s Monster–like creation, but it doesn’t leave anything out, nor does it have mismatches at the joints. Landmasses fit together seamlessly at the boundaries of any given transition zone between projections, because with a little math and the right tools, you can make two projections (of the right variety) match each other at a given location.

The other goal is to educate, through entertainment. It looks funny, thus drawing attention; and in doing so I hope it will jar people into realizing how distorted all projections are. This projection is just as valid as any other, in terms of how faithfully it represents the earth. It’s equal-area, showing everything in proper size proportion. It has interruptions, sure, but so do many others. It is a composite, yes, but so are other projections.

I think it’s in the same vein as those “south-up” world maps that you can buy, or ones centered on the Pacific. Many audiences would find them unfamiliar, but the maps use their uniqueness to make people realize that there’s really no right way to portray the world, and that our conventions are frequently arbitrary.

It’s available for free download at pretty high resolution, or you can buy it as a print, and while Daniel doesn’t actually expect anyone to do it, honestly, why not?