In 1569, Gerardus Mercator created a revolutionary map—the map we see everywhere today. It was design primarily as a guide for nautical travel.
The problem is his map significantly inflated the size of Europe and North America. In the Mercator map, Canada and Russia occupy 25% of the earth’s surface, whereas in reality they only take up about 5%.
The image below puts the earth’s landmasses into proper proportion. Africa and South America remain largely the same size, but Europe and North America are significantly smaller.
Now imagine millions of children over the past 400 years growing up and seeing the Mercator map. What mental models did they form about the relative size, and therefore importance, of certain landmasses over others?
This is one example of how the images we pick, the words we choose, and the stories we tell, all have an impact on the way we see, turn up, and engage with the world.