Mercator preserves angles and straight lines. Wherever you zoom or pan on a Mercator map, north is still at the top, east to the right, etc. By contrast, for a projection without those properties (which is basically none except minor variants of Mercator), north is going to shift around depending on where you’re looking.
By way of example, here’s Auckland in the Equal Earth projection the article discusses, with north marked:
spoiler
It’s significantly tilted and actually slightly curved. This is not useful for navigation, or really anything except exactly what Togo wants to achieve (which in general is exactly what you want for the sorts of global maps the UN is likely to make): knowing that any two areas that are the same size on the map are the same size in real life.
Can you explain?
Mercator preserves angles and straight lines. Wherever you zoom or pan on a Mercator map, north is still at the top, east to the right, etc. By contrast, for a projection without those properties (which is basically none except minor variants of Mercator), north is going to shift around depending on where you’re looking.
By way of example, here’s Auckland in the Equal Earth projection the article discusses, with north marked:
spoiler
It’s significantly tilted and actually slightly curved. This is not useful for navigation, or really anything except exactly what Togo wants to achieve (which in general is exactly what you want for the sorts of global maps the UN is likely to make): knowing that any two areas that are the same size on the map are the same size in real life.