Countries
Questions
1. Tell us a little bit about your country, please.
2. Do we need so many countries in the world?
3. What things are necessary for a country to be a country?
4. Do you like your country? Why?
5. How many countries have you been to?
6. Which country in the world do you most admire and why?
7. If you were a country, what would you be and why?
8. What country would you love to live in apart from before?
Videos
Yakko Warner from the TV show Animaniacs singing a song to help you learn the Nations of the World.
Category: Geography & Travel
Making accurate world maps is mathematically impossible.
Maps are flat representations of our spherical planet. Johnny Harris cut open a plastic globe to understand
Maps are flat representations of our spherical planet. Johnny Harris cut open a plastic globe to understand
[more]
just what it takes to turn a sphere into something flat.
His struggle to make a flat map out of the plastic globe is indicative of a challenge mapmakers have faced for centuries: It is mathematically impossible to translate the surface of a sphere onto a plane without some form of distortion.
To solve this problem, mathematicians and cartographers have developed a huge library of representations of the globe, each distorting a certain attribute and preserving others.
For instance, the Mercator projection preserves the shape of countries while distorting the size, especially near the north and south pole.
For a more accurate view of land area look at the Gall-Peters projection, which preserves area while distorting shape.
In the end, there’s not “right” map projection. Each comes with trade-offs, and cartographers make projection decisions based on the particular tasks at hand. But if you are interested in seeing an accurate depiction of the planet, it’s best to stick with a globe.
His struggle to make a flat map out of the plastic globe is indicative of a challenge mapmakers have faced for centuries: It is mathematically impossible to translate the surface of a sphere onto a plane without some form of distortion.
To solve this problem, mathematicians and cartographers have developed a huge library of representations of the globe, each distorting a certain attribute and preserving others.
For instance, the Mercator projection preserves the shape of countries while distorting the size, especially near the north and south pole.
For a more accurate view of land area look at the Gall-Peters projection, which preserves area while distorting shape.
In the end, there’s not “right” map projection. Each comes with trade-offs, and cartographers make projection decisions based on the particular tasks at hand. But if you are interested in seeing an accurate depiction of the planet, it’s best to stick with a globe.
[less]
Category: Geography & Travel