World Maps


How are normal world maps created?

Planet Earth is quite much like a sphere. When it is depicted on a square world map, this is often done just like on the map below. This is called the Equirectangular or Geographic projection. Longitude lines are the lines between the North and South pole. These lines come together near the poles, but get more distant from each other near the equator. World maps are often created by drawing these lines as if they are parellel, i.e. as if they are as distant from each other near the poles as near the equator.
This yields quite a lot of distortion on the map, but we don't complain. The distortion is biggest near the poles and few people live in these cold areas. Therefore, a world map with hugely distorted poles is not inconvenient.

Alternative world maps



A demonstration video


Create your own maps!

The Alternative World Map Creator is a program for Windows, which allows you to create alternative maps.
Also, a screensaver that generates random maps is included.

Important: this program is not under development anymore. It works with Windows Vista and Windows 7, but I can not guarantee that it works with more recent Windows versions.

Download the program (9 mb).