this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026
770 points (98.9% liked)
Mildly Interesting
27836 readers
368 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I want to contradict you slightly: people don't use world maps for navigation, but most are still using a world map projection, just zoomed in. Most map services like Google maps, mapquest, etc use something called the Web Mercator at all levels of zoom, i think because of the challenge of needing to zoom in anywhere on the map. I am not an expert on why they use the web mercator though.
I didn't say they don't use projections, I just said they don't use world maps. Localized maps are much easier to achieve accuracy of both distance and direction
Hence the clarification! They do use world map projections. I don't think they have to, but do for efficiency? Not an expert.