Earth no longer flat in Google Maps

Blue marble. © Google.

To the dismay of those who still believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Earth is flat, Google has given up the Mercator projection for its mapping services. If you zoom out on the web version, you’ll find that Earth is now a globe. This has the advantage of avoiding many of the distortions inherent to a flat map, for example where Greenland looks as large as Africa, when it is in fact 1/14th of its size. Indeed, the downside of the Mercator projection is that it imposes a distortion effect that gets amplified as latitude increases. The new spherical projection works in map and satellite modes. You can even spin the globe with a click of your mouse. Cool!

⇨ TechCrunch, “Google Maps is no longer #flatearth.”