Should Google Maps Use a 3D Globe? Evolution of web maps

The Era of Web Mercator: Why the Web Chose the Plane

In 2005, Google launched Google Maps, revolutionizing the way we navigate cities. To render the map, they chose a special variation of the Mercator projection called Web Mercator (coded as EPSG:3857). Why did they choose a projection that distorts country sizes so heavily on a global scale?

The reason was purely technical. The Mercator projection is conformal. This means it preserves shapes and angles locally. When you zoom in to the street level in any city, road intersections cross at 90° and building outlines retain their correct proportions. Additionally, this projection tiles perfectly into square 256x256-pixel coordinates, which was critical for web performance and rendering speed at the time.

The 3D Breakthrough: Google Switches to a Globe (2018)

However, the cost of Web Mercator was cementing school-level illusions about country sizes on a global scale. Users looking at screens still believed Greenland was the size of Africa. In 2018, Google rolled out a major update to Google Maps on desktop. When you zoom out to a global scale, the flat rectangle folds smoothly into an **interactive 3D globe** (Orthographic projection).

Thanks to this update:

• Country sizes are actual: Greenland stopped looking like a giant continent and returned to a small island next to massive Africa.
• Global navigation is realistic: Flight paths and transcontinental distances are displayed naturally (great circles appear as straight lines on the globe).
• Smartphones join the revolution: With hardware-accelerated 3D graphics (WebGL), interactive globes run smoothly on mobile devices.

The Future of Geovisualization: Vectors and WebGL

The transition to a 3D globe is a major milestone in geography education. It combines the local mapping benefits of Web Mercator (for street routing) with the realism of a physical globe at a global level. Modern vector tile maps allow for dynamic projection recalculation on the fly. To compare Web Mercator with a globe model, try out our size comparison map sandbox and explore the Orthographic projection (globe view) in our catalog.