January 22, 2026 |
Mentally and Geographically Challenged
January 22, 2026
Today's news: Greenland is big. It is about 1.46 times the size of Alaska. It is also very much farther north, which causes some people to think it's even bigger. The reason for this misconception goes back to the year 1569, when explorers found themselves falling off the edge of the Earth and/or being devoured by monsters.
A cartographer named Gerardus Mercator (actually that's a latinization of his true name, quod erat mos temporum, my own latinization of "a fashion of the time"), realized that by making distances along lines of longitude the same length as along lines of latitude, one could make a map that let mariners (later a Seattle baseball team) follow any straight line to a destination. Very cool, and it became the basis for most maps on schoolroom walls around the world.
Sadly, its advantage came at a price. Because lines of longitude are not really straight but convergent toward the poles, making them match lines of latitude means that convergent lines extend to infinity, which in turn means that land near the poles appears increasingly larger than its true size, and inded the poles cannot be shown on the map, which didn't bother Mercator, as Antarctica was yet to be fully discovered. (Please don't write to me about ancient maps that appear to show it while getting everything else wrong.)
We return you now to our regularly scheduled program about Greenland.
The adjacent map shows North America and Greenland on a Mercator projection. (A projection is just any method of showing the spherical earth on a square page.)
The "Mercator effect" makes Greenland seem many times its true size. The north end is even more exaggerated, both north-south and east-west.
The distance from the 49th parallel (Canada) to the Florida keys is about 1,467 nautical miles, and the north-south extent of Greenland is about 1,440 NM, about the same, so the cute little Greenland shown on the map is roughly the size it would appear if it were at the same latitude as the lower 48 states. (Apologies to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; Greenland usually lies north of them, not on top of them. It's so confusing!)
One is reminded of a legend that followed Germany's defeat in World War I. It asserts that because German schoolbooks of the late 19th Century afforded one page to Germany and another to the USA, German political, industrial and military leaders assumed that they were of equal size and thus equal in economic, manufacturing and military prowess, and that, being German, they would of course prevail if the US entered the war. In that formulation, maps are all (or alles).
Now on to contemporary politics. First some background: The US has numerous longstanding agreements with Denmark, to which Greenland has belonged for over 300 years, that allow the US, its citizens and/or firms to to travel freely on the island, to organize businesses, to explore for and develop mineral wealth, and to defend the territory; in other words pretty much what any citizen can do. The good news for the local people is that they get a share of any goodies that might result.
It has been suggested that the USA should steal — make that conquer – make that invade — make that acquire Greenland and that the inhabitants instead be stripped of their nationality, reduced to strangers in their own land, and economically subordinated to foreign interests, losing in the process the education, old-age security, social services, travel rights, and sovereignty they have heretofore enjoyed. (The White House has neither confirmed or denied that presidential counsel Stephen Miller has a plan to deport them to an unnamed country in exchange for an outfielder to be named later.)
Amazingly those ingrates fail to see the many benefits that will come to them, such as the right to pay a tariff for Icelandic woolens or Portuguese cod or to be charged US income tax or to have the department of justice investigate anyone who complains. (The White House has neither confirmed nor denied that each of the 50,000 citizens will receive a photograph of Pres. Trump at no charge.)
And the beat goes on.
As John Snow observed, November is coming.
A cartographer named Gerardus Mercator (actually that's a latinization of his true name, quod erat mos temporum, my own latinization of "a fashion of the time"), realized that by making distances along lines of longitude the same length as along lines of latitude, one could make a map that let mariners (later a Seattle baseball team) follow any straight line to a destination. Very cool, and it became the basis for most maps on schoolroom walls around the world.
Sadly, its advantage came at a price. Because lines of longitude are not really straight but convergent toward the poles, making them match lines of latitude means that convergent lines extend to infinity, which in turn means that land near the poles appears increasingly larger than its true size, and inded the poles cannot be shown on the map, which didn't bother Mercator, as Antarctica was yet to be fully discovered. (Please don't write to me about ancient maps that appear to show it while getting everything else wrong.)
We return you now to our regularly scheduled program about Greenland.
The adjacent map shows North America and Greenland on a Mercator projection. (A projection is just any method of showing the spherical earth on a square page.)
The "Mercator effect" makes Greenland seem many times its true size. The north end is even more exaggerated, both north-south and east-west.
The distance from the 49th parallel (Canada) to the Florida keys is about 1,467 nautical miles, and the north-south extent of Greenland is about 1,440 NM, about the same, so the cute little Greenland shown on the map is roughly the size it would appear if it were at the same latitude as the lower 48 states. (Apologies to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland; Greenland usually lies north of them, not on top of them. It's so confusing!)
One is reminded of a legend that followed Germany's defeat in World War I. It asserts that because German schoolbooks of the late 19th Century afforded one page to Germany and another to the USA, German political, industrial and military leaders assumed that they were of equal size and thus equal in economic, manufacturing and military prowess, and that, being German, they would of course prevail if the US entered the war. In that formulation, maps are all (or alles).
Now on to contemporary politics. First some background: The US has numerous longstanding agreements with Denmark, to which Greenland has belonged for over 300 years, that allow the US, its citizens and/or firms to to travel freely on the island, to organize businesses, to explore for and develop mineral wealth, and to defend the territory; in other words pretty much what any citizen can do. The good news for the local people is that they get a share of any goodies that might result.
It has been suggested that the USA should steal — make that conquer – make that invade — make that acquire Greenland and that the inhabitants instead be stripped of their nationality, reduced to strangers in their own land, and economically subordinated to foreign interests, losing in the process the education, old-age security, social services, travel rights, and sovereignty they have heretofore enjoyed. (The White House has neither confirmed or denied that presidential counsel Stephen Miller has a plan to deport them to an unnamed country in exchange for an outfielder to be named later.)
Amazingly those ingrates fail to see the many benefits that will come to them, such as the right to pay a tariff for Icelandic woolens or Portuguese cod or to be charged US income tax or to have the department of justice investigate anyone who complains. (The White House has neither confirmed nor denied that each of the 50,000 citizens will receive a photograph of Pres. Trump at no charge.)
And the beat goes on.
As John Snow observed, November is coming.
