The Gall-Peters projection
Gall-Peters is a map that promises to never make a country look bigger than it really is — the same promise Equal Earth makes. The difference is how it keeps that promise: it stretches shapes hard to do it, so countries end up looking oddly tall and skinny or short and squat.
Key facts
- Family
- Cylindrical, equal-area
- Designer
- James Gall; popularized by Arno Peters
- Year
- 1855 / 1973
- Preserves
- True size
- Best for
- Comparing true country size when a stretched, unfamiliar shape is an acceptable tradeoff
- Weak at
- Shape — equatorial regions stretched tall and narrow, polar regions squashed short
What it looks like
Gall-Peters stretches countries near the equator tall and thin, and squashes countries near the poles short and wide. Everything keeps its true size, but almost nothing keeps its familiar outline.
What it keeps true, and what it distorts
It keeps size true, just like Equal Earth. What it gives up is shape: countries near the equator get stretched into tall, narrow versions of themselves, and countries near the poles get squashed into wide, flat versions.
The controversy
James Gall actually invented this map back in 1855, but almost nobody used it. Then in 1973, a mapmaker named Arno Peters presented a very similar map and argued that maps like Mercator had been quietly making equatorial countries look smaller than they really are, which he said mattered because those are often countries that had been colonized. That argument made the map famous — and also started a real disagreement among mapmakers.
Where you meet it today
You'll mostly see Gall-Peters in classrooms and organizations that picked it on purpose, to make a point about fairness in maps. It's a solid choice if size is the only thing you care about and you don't mind that the shapes look unusual.
Try it yourself
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Gall-Peters and Equal Earth?
Both are equal-area, so both keep every country's true relative size honest. The difference is shape: Gall-Peters enforces area accuracy with a simple cylindrical stretch that badly distorts shape, especially stretching equatorial countries tall and thin, while Equal Earth uses a smoother curve that keeps shapes closer to recognizable. For most modern uses, Equal Earth gives the same size honesty with a gentler-looking result.
Why is the Gall-Peters projection controversial?
In 1973, Arno Peters promoted it by arguing that Mercator had been quietly shrinking the visual size of equatorial, often formerly colonized, countries, and that this mattered politically. That argument made the map famous, but also drew criticism from cartographers, some of whom felt Peters overstated his map's originality and understated its own severe shape distortion. The debate over both claims is still discussed today.
Who invented the Gall-Peters projection?
James Gall first described it in 1855, but it went largely unused for over a century. Arno Peters presented an almost identical projection in 1973, apparently without crediting Gall, and it's his version and his political argument for it that made the map widely known, which is why it now carries both names.
Does the Gall-Peters projection fix Mercator's size problem?
Yes, completely — it's fully equal-area, so no country's relative size is exaggerated the way Mercator exaggerates high-latitude places. The cost is shape: fixing the size problem this way stretches countries near the equator tall and narrow and squashes countries near the poles short and wide.
Why do countries look stretched and skinny on the Gall-Peters map?
Gall-Peters keeps every country's true area, and near the equator it does that by compressing the map's vertical scale less than it does elsewhere, which leaves equatorial countries looking pulled tall and narrow compared to their globe shape. It's the price of guaranteeing area with a simple cylindrical projection rather than a smoother curved one.