Mental Map Oversimplification (MMO) is a real thing, but it might be overstating things to say people "suffer" from it. MMO is the tendency to think of geographic names and terms as straightforward, when real places on earth do not follow linguistic shortcuts and borders are not simply straight lines.
Americans tend to think of Canada as "the North" (and so do Canadians), but geographically, more than 60% of Canadians live south of Seattle. In fact, the most southern part of Canada is at the same latitude as California! We also look at South America as "south" when it's also very much east of North America. Brazil is much closer to Africa than it is to the US, but that's hard to visualize because of Brazil's continent's name. And you might not realize that Chicago, Illinois, and Rome, Italy, are at the same latitude. Well, Rome is very slightly further north. The local climate of those cities make that hard to believe.
Read more mind-blowing examples of MMO at Atlas Obscura. You'll start to look at maps in a whole new way.
(Image credit: Victoria Ellis)
Newest 1 Comment
Speaking of grotesquely oversimplified maps. The one in your article is grotesquely unreal. For instance the northern border of the United States (in the West) and the southern border of Canada (again in the West) lie along the 49th parallel the lines that are shown in your map we're drawn with a ruler and do not in any way reflect what they claim to reflect. To more accurately reflect reality they ought to be curved as is the border.I'll also add that even at this scale the state of Michigan ought shown.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)