Where is the center of the world? The UN map explained
How the azimuthal equidistant projection works and why Antarctica can become a ring.
Every map chooses a protagonist
In an azimuthal equidistant projection, the protagonist is the center of the map. The distance and direction from that point to every other place on Earth are shown correctly. Distances between the other points need not be.
So the map answers one specific question: how far away is everything else, and in which direction, if I look from the chosen place? Straight lines leaving the center are the shortest routes over the sphere, and circles around the center join places at the same distance.
Which is larger in reality: Africa or Greenland?
Why does the UN map look this way?
According to its official description, the emblem of the United Nations shows a map of the world in an azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the North Pole. The map extends to 60 degrees south latitude. The continents surround a shared center, so no country takes the middle the way Europe does on many rectangular maps.
That choice has a price. Scale is true along the lines radiating from the center, but perpendicular to them it grows with the distance from the pole. Land far to the south, such as South America and Africa, is therefore stretched along the parallels.
Antarctica as a ring
On a map of the whole world, the point opposite the center, its antipode, is not a dot. It becomes the outer circle, whose radius is twice the radius of the Equator on the same map. In the version centered on the North Pole that circle is the South Pole, so Antarctica is stretched into a ring along the edge. This is a property of the projection, not the real shape of the planet.
This is exactly the picture used in drawings called a “flat Earth map”. It is not a separate model of the world, just an ordinary azimuthal map of a sphere. We describe how the real shape of Earth was measured in How humanity measured the shape of Earth.
Where does this map work well?
According to the USGS album of map projections, the polar version is used for maps of polar regions and hemispheres, and the oblique version for world maps centered on important cities. Such a map quickly shows which places lie within a given radius of the chosen point and which way to set off to reach them by the shortest route. It is not suited to comparing areas, because areas grow with distance from the center.
Change the center, change the question
In the lab, choose Warsaw or Quito, or tap anywhere. The distance circles and directions immediately describe the world from the new point. Watch how the shapes of the continents change: this is a map of distances from one place, not a map of proportions.