This particular upside down map is colorful, visually engaging, and has all the flags of the countries of the world around the border. World mission and aid-giving agencies use the Peters map because it serves to represent the developing countries at their true proportion. People feel pride in their country when its relative size is shown accurately. The Peters map has been widely adopted elsewhere, but remains a curiosity in the United States. Arno Peters was one of the first to assert that maps are unavoidably political.
All projections possess desirable but mutually exclusive attributes.
As we mentioned earlier, no single projection can show both size and shape. We hope you'll explore many different points of view. Lots of great free materials are available from the US Geological Survey. 2000 George Simons International. See reprint policy for reproducing material from this site.