On June 27, we hosted From The Vault — That Doesn’t Look Quite Right: Geographically Inaccurate Maps.

Due to the shape of our planet, it would be impossible to depict the actual sizes of the world’s geography on a flat sheet of paper. However, with thousands of years of exploration under our belt, humans have been able to figure out the relative size and general shape of landmasses from decades of recording and sharing information with one another. Unfortunately, all of this time comes with a few mishaps…

The interesting maps in this From The Vault show what happens when mapmakers cut and paste features that haven’t been confirmed as 100% fact, whether they know it or not. Whether through resizing, deleting, splitting, fusing, or reimagining land—there’s something just a little off in these maps.

In That doesn’t Look Quite Right…, the cartographic choices the mapmakers and publishers used to portray things different aspects in their maps can help explain some of their perceived perspective of the world.

Catharine Sargent, A Mercators chart (1791)

This map was produced by an eighteenth-century Boston schoolgirl as part of her geography studies. Unfortunately, there are glaring errors present to us in the modern day. California is portrayed as an island and Alaska, as well as part of Australia, are missing large chunks of their landmasses. Despite these mistakes on the map, the general goal of Catharine’s assignment was achieved….

From the late 18th to mid-19th centuries, American girls sight-copied or traced maps as part of their coursework to improve their penmanship and artistry while simultaneously learning the cultural norms of their society. This form of instruction as a way of ensuring good citizens was partially inspired by ideas from the American Revolution, such as “Republican Motherhood”, which saw usefulness in civically educated women to instill nationalism in future generations. While those in power did not intend to expand education for equality-sake, mapmaking allowed for children previously barred by socioeconomic status to access literacy.

Jean Denis Janvier, L’Amerique divisée par grand etats (1762)

Besides the misshapen Alaskan peninsula and the absence of Hawaii, the most glaring error in this map is the inclusion of a sea in the middle of the Southwest region of Canada. The “Mer ou Baye de l’Ouest” (Translated from French to “Sea or Bay of the West”), was an eighteenth-century myth that was developed during the search for a Northwest Passage through North America by sea travel. The concept of its existence is tied to many possible sources, and each had a guess for where the entrance of said sea may be located. 

One guess was that an entrance was the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a very real geographical feature which serves as a nautical border between the United States and Canada, allowing for ships to navigate with people and cargo around Vancouver Island. The year this map was created, the strait would have been nameless. Curiously, the sea as it is included here does not show a purely nautical path between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

William Faden, A chart of the world upon Mercator’s projection : describing the tracks of Capt. Cook in the year 1768, 69, 70, 71, and in 1772, 73, 74, 75, with the new discoveries (1775)

While most of the errors in this map concern the shorelines, the most glaring mistake is the supposed land bridge between Northeast Canada and Greenland. The discovery of the Davis Strait, a stretch of water that separates Northeastern Canada and Greenland, was made by English explorer John Davis during his 1585 to 1587 voyages. However, this map, based on the travels of the widely celebrated and extremely popular English explorer, Captain James Cook, lacks the strait despite it being two centuries older than the initial discovery.

There could be a variety of reasons for this discrepancy. The information about Davis' expedition may have been lost since it ultimately failed in its goal—finding the Northwest Passage between the two oceans through North America —and may have not seemed worth including. Captain James Cook also failed in finding the Northwest Passage, however heavily detailed documentation of places unknown to Europeans from his past voyages led to an almost untouchable reputation amongst English audiences at the time. Another possibility was that the mapmaker, William Faden, wanted to prevent plagiarism of his work by purposely including false information. A common copyright trap until the 1980s, Faden could have drafted the “Arctic Lands” to catch those plagiarizing his work.

Daniel K. Wallingford, This map presents a Bostonian’s idea of the United States of America (1935)

This satirical map, meant to poke fun at the excessive devotion and biased preference that a Bostonian can have for their city uses size distortion to expand the size of Massachusetts while keeping the rest of the United States at a comparatively smaller size. The distortion affects other parts of the country, including city names that are geographically shifted out of place or comically grouped together in some places for exaggeration.

Little is known about mapmaker Daniel K. Wallingford’s life, but he attended Cornell University and graduated as an Architecture and Industrial Design student. His inspiration for “A Bostonian’s Idea of The United States of America” was likely due to his upcoming move to Boston in 1936. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota and having lived in Indianapolis (Indiana), Andover (Massachusetts), Ithaca (New York), and Chicago (Illinois) prior to Boston, Wallingford makes light of the kind of urban patriotism he was most likely exposed to while residing in each city.

Crépy (Firm), L’Amérique (1735)

In the mid-1700s, the demand for maps of North America grew as French territorial claims (Like the Louisiana or “Louisiane” territory) clashed with other European claims and Indigenous sovereignty. These maps didn’t guarantee accuracy, as in this map, California is portrayed as an island. Most portrayals of California as an island ended after the mid-18th century, as Mexican explorer Juan Bautista de Anza’s 1774-1776 overland expeditions confirmed a continental California. Prior to de Anza’s expeditions, other expeditions, like Father Eusebio Kino’s in 1701 had also claimed a continental California. However, rivalry between the Spanish and English empires had caused Spain to push the island myth in the early 1600s to invalidate English claims to California in 1579.

Credited as being created by the Crépy firm, this map was derived from the multi-generational family of engravers consisting of Jean Crépy, his sons Louis Crépy and Etienne-Louis Crépy, and well-known grandson Jean-Baptiste Crépy. This map was likely produced by one of the Crépy sons, as Jean had retired from engraving in 1731 after the death of his wife.

Ernest Dudley Chase, Mercator map of the world (1931)

Despite this map looking very similar to one of the many American students grew up seeing, this map is an oddity when compared to the actual appearance of the Earth. This is due to the map use of the Mercator projection in order to depict the Earth’s lumpy almost sphere-like shape on a flat map—one way of understanding the world but not an accurate one. The Mercator projection is close in terms of consistency: it maintains the same scale east to west as it does north to south on a uniform grid. However, this leads to distorted land size in favor of preserving the overall shapes. For example, Greenland is depicted as being a comparable size or larger to the African continent, when in reality, it is fourteen and a half times smaller.

In Ernest Dudley Chase’s time, the Mercator projection was still in (over)use, and wouldn’t be seriously challenged by mapmakers and enthusiasts until 1974. For more on the Mercator projection, check out our learning center’s library (before 2pm on Fridays) and this map projection playground.