# World Maps - why split at International Date Line?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 2, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948 "2003-04-02T13:33:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Dunmurry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d2c977/32.png) [@Dunmurry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunmurry)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948/1 "2003-04-02T13:33:22Z")

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Maps of the world always display the world with the International Date Line at both ends, and the Greenwich meridian in the middle.  
I know this is better than splitting London in half, but are there any other reasons why this is the place where it is split?  
Does anyone know if other countries produce maps split in other places?  
A while ago, I saw a map which looked odd in that all the continents appeared tom be squished. It appeared as if they had been stretched. The map had an explanation that alot of maps are inaccurate because countries are not shown in their relative sizes to other countries. Apparently the countries where the map is made show certain countries to be the same size, when one of them may be three times larger. Has anyone else seen this?

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**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948/2 "2003-04-02T13:35:53Z")

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Maps here (East Asia) are split in the Atlantic Ocean. I think cartographers tend to put their audience (so to speak) in the center of the map.

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**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948/3 "2003-04-02T13:37:57Z")

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The obvious reason is that there’s not a lot happening (land-wise) in the centre of the Pacific and so there’s no great loss about splitting the map there.  
In Australia I saw inverted maps centred on Australia, so it seems thay may be drawn to bring greater emphasis to the countries where they sell them.

Or, what **jovan** said.

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**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948/4 "2003-04-02T13:42:18Z")

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[Here’s](http://www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/maps/mapint.htm) a good page with various World Map projections shown.

You can see the obvious difference between the [Cylindrical Equal-Area](http://www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/maps/mcy0105.htm) projection and the (more common) [Meracator](http://www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/maps/mcy0101.htm) projection.

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**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/world-maps-why-split-at-international-date-line/165948/5 "2003-04-02T13:42:40Z")

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The map you mentioned in the OP is probably the [Peters Projection](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PetersProjection.html). I think it’s kind of cool, but it all depends on what you want to use the map for whether it’s more accurate or not.