How Maps LIE To You

What I found cool was that atlas makers would put towns that never existed on their maps so they can sue other map makers for copying.

Fun fact: The famous Blue Marble photo taken by the crew of Apollo 17 in 1972 was actually taken “upside down” with the southern hemisphere on top. NASA flipped the image to make it align with our normal expectations of a map.

The fascinating thing about the "South-up" world map is how it really shows how comparatively little land there is in the Southern Hemisphere. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans end up just looking like large gulfs in a vast northern ocean.

8:20 Atlas Pro actually has a video on these mountains called "Finding the Source of the Nile river." and he mentions these mountains a lot so I recommend it if you're interested in learning about them.

Fun fact: before rail, maps often strongly highlighted and named rivers because they were the main method of mass transport. You could clearly see the difference for example, between a map of England from the 16th century and one from the 19th or 20th century.

So basically most of the maps dont lie, it's just that people cant interpret them correctly

I remember seeing the South on top map maybe 5 or 6 years ago and ever since then I’ve pointed it out to others. Interesting way of tweaking one’s POV :)

12:03 it doesn't make the northern hemisphere look larger than the southern, but polar regions look larger than equatorial ones. However, there is more land in the northern hemisphere, so this is technically true

Not ONE mention of the Earth being FLAT. Smh RealLifeLore Seriously tho, love your content, you're a great inspiration to Geo nerds everywhere!

The problem with any 2d map of a 3d sphere is that there is no truly "accurate" was of portraying it, people love to "correct" the map but all they're doing is changing what things they're willing to sacrifice for the sake of making the map.

Fun face: for most of history south was up. Ancient Egyptians had south up (hence northern Egypt is lower Egypt), the first ever map of the world was done by an Arab geographer in service of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and it had the south up, the Chinese too had the south up.

12:03 - wrong, the Mercator projection doesn't enlarge the Northern hemisphere vs the Southern hemisphere - it enlarges land near the poles and compresses land near the equator (it just happens that more land in the northern hemisphere is closer to the pole than vice versa)

I don’t understand why the Mercador projection is often portrayed as some elaborate propaganda conspiracy, but it’s just like… no? It turns out having a map whose primary purpose is to keep directions consistent with the real world is useful lol

I love this channel, geopolitics and demographics. You should do a video of the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan. Edit: holy cow, never thought I’d get 167 likes and a heart by Reallifelore.

I'd love to hear more about this mystical Kong mountain range and how it came to be. As for the London Underground map, credit where credit is due, that map is so super easy to read and understand, even though it looks super intimidating at first glance. So whoever designed it, hats off to them. They did a bang up job.

On the other hand.. The solar system rotates on a plane. If you plot it in three dimensions there is a z axis that would correlate to up. Not only that, the solar system itself rotates on the galactic plane of the Milky Way in roughly the same orientation depending on the axial tilt of the earth at any given time. Even though all of these are objects in space we have to use some relative orientation to designate their orientation. Think galactic size is as good as any to say: This is up, this is down. That doesn't change until you hit Andromeda.

Maps actually don't lie to people. People just don't know how to read them, and don't know what those lines on the maps are for. Not sure why sooooo many YT channels are on this "Maps lie to us" kick this past month, but it's really quite annoying.

I mean, North isn't lying... It's the Magnetic position of the northern pole of the planet. Sure the map could be flipped, but a compass would still point true north towards the North Pole of the planet.

13:28 its not "just hard to show an accurate portrayal..." its impossible... you can either keep the angles/directions correct/true to reality OR the lengths coming from a sphere going into a 2D plane. if anyone thinks its possible, go talk to the guys from the nobel prize

I just gotta say, it's weird that we've switched to saying "misinformation and disinformation" when we used to call it either a "mistake or a lie". "Misinformation" implies that it's someone's fault for being mis-informed or not knowing in the first place (as if that is a moral wrong) and "disinformation" implies that you are knowingly propagating false information (something we used to call 'telling a lie' in the 'before times'). I'm not all about grammar or spelling, honestly I'd much rather do anything else, I just noticed that the phrasing we've switched to in the past few years has shifted the meaning. Where before it seemed to imply someone either accidentally or purposely spread false information as opposed to now where the phrasing implies that the individual sharing information is responsible for any information they tell regardless if it was an accident or intended (like if you unknowingly said something incorrect, you're on the hook for the rest of your life). Ultimately this new phrasing places an unrealistic expectation for perfection with knowledge of current events, not even Giga-geniuses with 9000+ IQ's can make mistakes with information. Not saying there isn't a time and place for the phrasing, but if you're just jogging with a friend, having coffee with a coworker, or posting something to social media, it doesn't really seem appropriate to assign the same level of responsibility as you would a doctor or engineer.