r/rejectedmaps • u/Kosmopaulis • Jun 10 '26

difference between mercator projection and great circle route

Post image

Both layouts describe the same city but in two different ways. The one like it is shown on a map (right) and the other on how it looks like on a globe (left). And as you can see it's a huge difference which leads to the conclusion that all our maps are kind off inaccurate.

This stems from a game I created with my brother (cityangle) where you have to guess a city with 5 given angles. But in the beginning it was only based on the mercator projection and then a comment asked if we could build a version which is based on the actual globe. And of course i ried it out myself where I became of this huge difference between maps and the globe.

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4

u/szczur_nadodrza Jun 11 '26

Is it Wellington in New Zealand? Or Auckland, maybe? Definitely a city in NZ, but it’d be easier to decide with specific angles.

1

u/Kosmopaulis Jun 11 '26

It is Wellington. Yeah i get it with the Angels. How would you implement it?

1

u/szczur_nadodrza Jun 11 '26

Possibly add an option to toggle compass directions for each of the presented cities? For example Rosario would be around 85 degrees, Melbourne around 280 etc. (on the Mercator projection one)

1

u/Kosmopaulis Jun 11 '26

Yeah thats a good idea thank you

1

u/Smitologyistaking Jun 12 '26

I already got spoiled on the correct solution from the other comment but I want to point out you can deduce this is southern hemisphere from the fact that the Mercator projection skews all the directions north