A world map centered on Australia
On many world maps used in Poland, Europe sits near the middle and Australia lies far to the right. It is easy to remember this arrangement as the natural shape of the world. Yet a sphere has no left or right edge. Where to cut and flatten its image is a choice made by the mapmaker.
Put Australia at the center of the map. The Pacific moves away from the margins and familiar continents appear in an unexpected arrangement. It is still the same Earth. We change the viewpoint, not the locations of countries.
The world has more than one center
See Australia at the center of Equal Earth. Then choose a country and discover a different map of the same planet.
Change the world's center ↗What happens to relative areas when Equal Earth's center changes?
Two meanings of “center”
In “On the central meridian” mode, we change only the longitude of the center. North stays up and Australia remains south of the equator. It sits in the middle horizontally, but not at the exact center of the sheet.
“Exactly at the center” rotates geographic coordinates before applying the flat projection. The chosen point in the country reaches the middle both horizontally and vertically. This produces an oblique aspect: the geographic grid changes direction, and north points different ways in different parts of the map. Turn on the north arrows to see this.
What does Equal Earth preserve?
Equal Earth preserves relative areas. Rotating a sphere does not change the areas of its parts, so this property survives a change of center. Australia may look different, but its share of the world's area does not grow. Shapes, directions and the locations of map edges do change.
This makes a useful starting point for an experiment: one setting controls how the world is flattened, while another controls the viewpoint. Read more about the first choice in our guide to Equal Earth.
What happens with Mercator?
Mercator centered on Australia is possible too. Exact centering produces an oblique Mercator. It preserves angles locally, but greatly stretches areas near the new projection poles. Those points need not coincide with the geographic poles, and part of the world falls outside the visible frame.
Familiar rules for reading standard Mercator do not automatically apply to this view. In particular, a straight line need not represent a constant bearing relative to geographic north. This map is a way to explore projection properties.
A country offers more choice than a continent
A single Europe button cannot distinguish Italy from Russia. Our tool lets you choose a country or territory from the full catalog. Try Russia, Italy and South Africa. Each choice has its own shareable address and a Polish counterpart.
We place the view anchor on the country's main land component. It is not an official geographic center or necessarily a capital. This keeps overseas territories from pulling France's center far away from Europe. For Tuvalu, absent from our simplified outlines, we use the approximate location of Funafuti.
One feature, different limits
A choice of center is available in nine projections, including Equal Earth, Mercator, Robinson and Mollweide. Gnomonic shows only part of a hemisphere. Azimuthal equidistant preserves distances from the central point. Polyhedral nets and views designed around oceans currently retain their special layouts; the interface explains these limits.
Compare the new view with the standard layout at the touch of a button. Look at what reaches the edges and where north points. This short experiment helps separate geography from habits learned through an atlas.