In an interview in the Spring 2026 issue of The World Today, William Rankin, author of Radical Cartography, looks at cartography in the present geopolitical situation and argues that maps need to be up to the challenge of today’s complications: “[M]ainstream cartographic conventions are often inadequate to show a complexity we do understand; and there are situations where we cannot say with confidence where we would put the lines even if we tried. The map itself should be messier. It should raise questions of ambiguity and multiple claims, rather than presenting a simplified version and then walking it back in a footnote.”
Category: Cartography
Imaginary Maps as Cartographic Guides
The Bodleian Map Room Blog looks at a specific kind of map of imaginary places, “designed to be a guide to cartographers by showing how to portray certain features, or for the map reader to show what the symbols mean.”
Here’s an example, ‘Colours and symbols used on fair sheets and fair tracing’, issued by the Hydrographic Office of the Navy in 1973. Fair here meaning a document after correction, ready to be used. But is it fair? With this ‘made-up’ map the Hydrographic Office have used real names but in random locations, so Campania, in reality a region of Italy, features, as does the English county of Rutland (though as a town here) and a made-up mountain, Montrosia. Best of all is mention of “Approaches to Valhalla”. The map shows different forms of landscape, both natural and man-made with the symbols used to show those features, and the names are added to give the whole an authentic feel.
It makes sense to do it this way: no single real map is likely to contain every single feature you’re trying to demonstrate.
Pinhead Map Icons
Quincy Morgan has released Pinhead Map Icons: “So you’re making a map and need some icons. Well, maybe a lot of icons. Like, for anything that might appear on a map. And they need to be visually consistent. Like the size and direction and whatever. And they gotta be free. Even public domain. In vector format. With no AI. Oh, and they all need to be legible on the head of a pin.” 1,045 icons and counting, in SVG format.
The Cold War Seen Through Polar Projections
On The Conversation, James Cheshire looks at the Cold War-era maps that news magazines commissioned to explain the geopolitical situation to their readers. “Their maps were large, dramatic and designed to be spread across kitchen tables and classroom desks. And they also offered a very different perspective to the mainstream maps we have become accustomed to today.” Which is to say: polar projections were front and centre.
Greenland, the Mercator, and You-Know-Who
Somebody’s been talking about Greenland again, and we’re getting another flurry of articles about how Greenland’s apparent size on maps may be to blame for the obsession. Last year it was suggested that Trump wanted Greenland simply because it looked really big on the Mercator projection: Slate and Newsweek were a lot less circumspect about it than Foreign Policy was, but then they would be. The latest round of press appears to be equally circumspect. The Financial Times and Geographical magazine turn evidence of executive ignorance into some kind of teachable moment about map projections instead of saying outright: he thinks it’s bigger than it actually is, and that’s nuts. Providing some context is always good, but let’s try not to bury the lede.
Most people know the poles are exaggerated on the Mercator projection. They’ve seen other projections. In Rhumb Lines and Map Wars, Mark Monmonier pushed back against the argument that map projections distort our understanding of geography: “Do they never look at a globe, or at other maps? Are map users complete idiots?”1 It was a rhetorical question: of course they aren’t, he was saying. Apparently there’s an exception. But when the emperor has no clothes, you have to proceed as though most people run around naked.
Previously: Trump’s ‘Cartographic Compulsion’.
A Book Roundup
In a Guardian piece last month, Laura Spinney briefly touches on three books and the ways in which they subvert our understanding of what’s on the map and how we use them to see the world. They are Free the Map: From Atlas to Hermes: a New Cartography of Borders and Migration by Henk van Houtum et al. (nai10, 2024); William Rankin’s Radical Cartography (Picador/
Doug Greenfield catches up with the 50 Maps series from Belt Publishing, focusing mainly on the two most recent: Cincinnati in 50 Maps by Nick Swartsell and maps by Andy Woodruff, and Columbus in 50 Maps by Brent Warren and maps by Vicky Johnson-Dahl. (Previously.)
Cincinnati in 50 Maps is one of two books—the other is Alan Wight’s Cincinnati’s Foodshed: An Art Atlas—that are the subject of a 23-minute segment on WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition this week, which interviews the authors.
‘Three Norths’ Leave England
The Ordnance Survey has announced that the triple alignment of true north, grid north (on OS maps) and magnetic north—the so-called three norths—has left England and is now over the North Sea. It’ll make landfall again in Scotland late next year. This is an artifact of, and specific to, Ordnance Survey maps, whose grid has a meridian is two degrees west longitude, east and west of which there is some difference between true north and grid north, and the movement of the north magnetic pole. In other words, the third north is product-specific. The triple alignment has been working its way north for the past three years; see my previous post for more.
A History of Swiss Cartography
Engineers of Map Art, a book on the history of Swiss cartography that focuses on work done at ETH Zurich, came out in English last September. (The German edition, Ingenieure der Kartenkunst, came out last January.) “This publication provides a comprehensive overview of 170 years of cartography at ETH Zurich and pays tribute to the personalities who have contributed to the development of the discipline. It is published on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Institute of Cartography and Geoinformation and highlights its contribution to science and practice.” Eduard Imhof is covered in chapter 4. It’s available for free download as an open-access PDF; a hard copy can be ordered for CHF 50. Thanks to Peter Wrobel for the tip.
Ethics in Cartography
Nat Case writes about the ethics of cartography in Psyche:
You might think there’s not a lot to get moralistic about in the world of mapping. You would be wrong. For decades now, various critiques have been raised about cartography, its history, its current practice, its complicity in the evils of the world, and cartographers’ degree of responsibility. On the one hand, cartographic history in the West is bound up with institutions that created maps to prosecute war, subjugate colonies, extract wealth from the earth regardless of who was already living there, and manage mass social engineering including a large-scale oppression. Maps can also be tools that create individual agency by giving any map-reader a manager’s view of the world. That part tends to be noncontroversial. It’s who we work for and with that causes some people to raise concerns.
How Maps Lie
Last week Andrew Middleton (he of The Map Center) gave a presentation at the Dickinson Memorial Library in Northfield, Massachusetts. Titled “How Maps Lie,” it’s the kind of introductory talk that can never be done too much: about what maps actually do, and the distance that can exist between the map and the territory. The video is an archived livestream; the talk itself stars about 15 minutes in.
‘The Correct Map Does Not Exist’
Miguel García Álvarez weighs in on the Correct the Map campaign to replace the Mercator projection with Equal Earth:
I think the Equal Earth projection is an excellent compromise. But as a cartography enthusiast, it pains me deeply every time someone talks about the “true” map, the “correct” map, or that the Mercator projection is “wrong.”
I will never stop loving this scene from the West Wing of the White House, but please don’t say that any map is right or wrong simply because of the projection it uses. We should just focus on saying that some projections are more or less suitable for different purposes, but we have to avoid sensationalism.
(This is the English version; it was first posted in Spanish.)
Previously: In Case You Thought the War Against the Mercator Projection Was Over Long Ago.
In Case You Thought the War Against the Mercator Projection Was Over Long Ago
A new front has been opened in the never-ending war against the Mercator projection. The African Union endorses Correct the Map’s campaign to replace the Mercator projection (which diminishes the relative size of Africa) with the Equal Earth projection. I think it’s awfully interesting that they’re proposing Equal Earth instead of the Peters map: Equal Earth is a better choice for maps of the world than the Peters or the Mercator, but then so are dozens of other projections. That the campaign against the Mercator is no longer necessarily a campaign for the Peters is something to take note of. [Andrew Middleton]
Though I’m still wrapping my head around the idea that campaigning against the Mercator is still a thing. Really, still? After all, it’s been decades since the Mercator was the dominant projection on wall maps. A quick look at the catalogues of Stanfords and World of Maps suggests maybe one in ten wall maps of the world use the Mercator, and the ones that do seem to be second-tier publications at best (because it’s been known for a long time that the Mercator is shit at being a world map). I guess the Mercator is too good a metaphor for colonialism and foreign domination to let go of it.
But then I have no idea which maps are used in classrooms, in Africa or anywhere else. And I’m often surprised at how much Mercator I see in online maps and infographics, because the tools they use default to Web Mercator. Web Mercator is perfectly fine—at large scales. Most online map providers use Web Mercator at all zoom levels (Apple Maps zooms out to a globe on Apple Silicon but not on older Intel Macs, Google offers globe view as an option on desktop). Web Mercator shows up a lot where an alternative would’ve been better. So it’s not like there isn’t a point here.
Previously: The Peters Map Is Fighting the Last War.
Making Maps in the Newsroom
Before joining Esri, Lauren Tierney spent a number of years making maps for the Washington Post. In this interview with Maps.com editor-in-chief Robby Deming she talks about her experiences making maps in the newsroom and the role of maps in journalism.
Designing Thematic World Maps for Smartphones
World maps tend to be wide (horizontal, landscape), whereas mobile phone screens tend to be tall (vertical, portrait). This makes world maps small and hard to see on phones: a problem when you’re trying to present data via a thematic world map (e.g. a choropleth map) on a web page, especially if you’re trying to show data on smaller countries. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung recently did a user study to test the efficacy of two map designs—one that splits continents up and portrays them in different scales to make them more legible on vertical screens, the other a hemispheric bubble map. The results were published in The Cartographic Journal; lead author Jonas Oesch provides a summary in this blog post. [Ralph Straumann]
Ferjan Ormeling Jr., 1942-2025
The International Cartographic Association announced the passing of Ferdinand Jan (“Ferjan”) Ormeling Jr., “a pioneering figure in thematic and atlas cartography and a backbone of the development of the International Cartographic Association.” He was 82.
A champion of cartographic education, Ormeling co-authored with Menno-Jan Kraak the well-regarded textbook Cartography: Visualization of Spatial Data, now in its fourth edition, which remains a foundational reference for generations of mapmakers. Both during and after his career, he curated an impressive collection of atlases and historical maps. In 2003, his collection—enhanced by books and wall maps—was generously donated to Utrecht University, enriching its map room alongside his father’s legacy.