In the history of cartography, countless map projections have been created to show our planet in two dimensions. Yet every map has its flaws, because projecting a spherical Earth onto a flat surface inevitably introduces distortion. Among these many attempts, one projection in particular has sparked debate and challenged long-held assumptions: the Peters Projection map.
Arno Peters and His Vision
Dr. Arno Peters was more than a historian and cartographer. He was a polymath with wide-ranging interests in social, political, and historical issues. Born in Berlin in 1916, Peters also worked as a filmmaker and earned a doctorate in history. He understood the power of media to shape public perception and global perspectives. This belief played a central role in the creation of the Peters Projection map*.
With a keen awareness of the interconnectedness of politics, economics, and history, Peters recognized that maps are more than navigational tools. They are symbols that can subtly influence how we see the world. He argued that the popular Mercator projection, with its size distortions, promoted a Eurocentric worldview by inflating the scale of northern countries and diminishing the Global South.
Determined to offer a fairer alternative, Peters set out to create a map that corrected these distortions. He believed the Mercator projection carried an embedded colonial bias and aimed to replace it with one that preserved area accuracy. This ambition led to the development of the Peters Projection, built on the principle that every region should be shown in proportion to its true size.
ODT, Inc. produced a short film about Arno Peters and his work. It is free for home viewing but can also be purchased as a DVD for commercial or institutional use.
From Gall to Peters: A Different Perspective of the World
Peters’ work was not without precedent. In 1855, Scottish clergyman and amateur cartographer James Gall presented a cylindrical equal-area projection to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Gall’s map*, like Peters’, preserved area at the expense of shape, offering a proportional view of landmasses. However, it received little attention during his lifetime.
In 1967, Peters independently developed a map using the same mathematical projection Gall had described more than a century earlier. Peters promoted it vigorously, framing it as a tool for social justice and a counter to Eurocentric bias. He advocated for its use in education and media, believing it could foster a more balanced understanding of world geography.
Because Peters popularized the projection, his name became more widely associated with it, leading to the common term “Gall-Peters Projection”. Together, Gall’s early concept and Peters’ global advocacy highlight how cartography can shape perceptions of the world.
Peters vs. Mercator: Comparing Two Map Projections
The Peters and Mercator projections approach the same challenge of flattening the globe in fundamentally different ways.
The Mercator projection, created in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator, was designed for navigation. It preserves local shapes and angles, which is ideal for plotting courses at sea, but it distorts size dramatically. Countries farther from the equator appear far larger than they are, making places like Greenland and Canada seem massive compared to equatorial regions.
The Peters Projection takes the opposite approach. It preserves area, ensuring that countries and continents are shown in proportion to their actual size. The trade-off is that shapes can appear stretched or compressed. Polar regions like Canada and Russia look elongated vertically, while equatorial countries appear squashed horizontally. Despite this, the projection offers a strikingly different view of the world, giving greater visual weight to regions often minimized on other maps.
Unveiling the Peters Projection: An Equal-Area Map
The Peters Projection is a cylindrical equal-area projection, designed to ensure that all regions are represented in correct proportion to their real-world size. Equal-area mapping means that the same amount of land surface occupies the same space on the map, regardless of its location.
Its rectangular layout keeps north-south and east-west directions aligned, making it straightforward to read compared to some other equal-area maps with more complex shapes. Crucially, it corrects Mercator’s tendency to shrink equatorial regions, many of which are in the Global South, while enlarging the northern latitudes. On a Peters map, Africa and South America appear much larger relative to Europe or North America, better reflecting their actual scale.
For Peters, this was more than a cartographic detail—it was a political statement. By restoring size parity to underrepresented regions, his projection invites viewers to see the world with greater balance and equality.
Advantages of the Peters Projection Map
The Peters Projection Map, while not without its criticisms, offers several key benefits that make it stand out from more traditional projections:
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Precise area representation – Shows all landmasses in accurate proportion to their true size, avoiding the exaggerated scale of higher-latitude regions seen in maps like the Mercator.
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Promotes social awareness – Sparked important discussions about the political and cultural influence of maps, encouraging people to question how geography is presented.
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Keeps country sizes proportional – Preserves the relative sizes of all nations, regardless of latitude, offering a fairer global perspective.
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Clear continental borders – Makes it easier to compare and distinguish continents, even in politically sensitive or geographically complex areas.
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Familiar world layout – Used by organizations like the United Nations because it presents the continents in a way that many viewers instinctively recognize.
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Accurate ocean outlines – Depicts ocean shapes and boundaries with reasonable accuracy, despite some distortion at the poles.
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Authentic geographic relationships – Parallel lines of latitude and longitude make it possible to calculate distances from the equator and understand positional relationships.
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Useful for specific studies – Particularly effective for projects that require equal-area comparisons, such as population density analysis or resource mapping.
Disadvantages of the Peters Projection Map
Despite its strengths, the Peters Projection also comes with notable limitations:
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Severe polar distortion – Greatly stretches landmasses at the poles, altering both size and shape.
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Limited distance accuracy – Distances are only accurate along certain parallels, reducing their usefulness for precise measurement.
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Unfinished original work – Peters left final drafting to Terry Hardaker of Oxford Cartographers, raising concerns about design continuity.
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Distorted polar regions – Antarctica, Greenland, and northern Canada appear unnaturally stretched or flattened.
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Poor visibility for small islands – Island nations, especially in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, are often reduced to tiny, hard-to-see shapes.
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Included in the 1989 rectangular map ban – Several major geographic organizations discouraged the use of rectangular coordinate maps, including this projection.
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Misplaced Kamchatka Peninsula – Appears farther from Alaska than in reality, potentially misleading viewers.
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Shape distortion limits use – Equal-area focus causes significant shape changes, making it less practical for navigation or tasks requiring shape accuracy.
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Political controversy – Its message of countering Eurocentrism has made it a subject of debate, especially in educational settings.
The Lasting Impact of the Peters Projection
Regardless of its flaws, the Peters Projection’s real legacy lies in the conversations it started. By challenging the dominance of the Mercator map, Peters forced people to confront the biases embedded in cartography. His work remains a reminder that the way we represent the world can shape how we understand it.
Peters Projection Map by ODT, Inc.
In 2001, the TV series The West Wing featured a Peters Projection map with permission from ODT, Inc. and its founder, Bob Abramms. The scene captured how disorienting—and enlightening—a shift in map perspective can be:
ODT, Inc. ended its business activities in 2021 when the team retired. However, its Peters Projection map, the Hobo-Dyer world map, and other products are still available for purchase*.
*The links marked with an asterisk are affiliate links. Please read our affiliate disclosure for more information.
