We all know most maps of the world aren't entirely accurate. For starters, Africa is way bigger than it looks, and Greenland isn't nearly so vast.
我們都知道多數(shù)世界地圖并不完全準(zhǔn)確。首先，非洲比看上去要大的多，而格陵蘭島根本就沒有那么大。

But now a designer in Japan has created a map that's so accurate it's almost as good as a globe, and it's probably one of the best estimations you'll see of the real size of countries.
但如今一位日本設(shè)計(jì)師設(shè)計(jì)了一幅非常精確的地圖，幾乎就像地球儀那樣精確。在這幅地圖上，你會(huì)看到各個(gè)國家的實(shí)際大小，而它很可能是最佳尺寸估算之一了。

The design, called AuthaGraph, is so good, it's just taken out Japan's biggest design accolade, the Good Design Award.
被稱為AuthaGraph的這幅地圖非常不錯(cuò)，而且它剛剛摘得日本設(shè)計(jì)屆最高榮譽(yù)——優(yōu)秀設(shè)計(jì)獎(jiǎng)。

Created by artist and architect Hajime Narukawa, the map looks pretty weird at first glance, with an orientation shift between Asia and North America, but it's actually one of the most proportional maps we've got.
這幅地圖是由藝術(shù)家兼建筑師鳴川肇設(shè)計(jì)的。乍看之下，這幅地圖十分詭異，因?yàn)閬喼藓捅泵乐薜姆轿蛔兞耍珜?shí)際上這是我們能夠拿到的最有比例性的地圖之一了。

That's because creating a precise a flat map of our spherical planet is incredibly hard.
因?yàn)樵O(shè)計(jì)一幅精確的星球平面地圖非常困難。

The map you're used to seeing pinned on classroom walls and in Atlases is known as a Mercator projection, and was first presented by the Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator back in 1569.
過去常被釘在教室墻上而且常出現(xiàn)在地圖冊(cè)中的那幅地圖以墨卡托投影著稱，最早是由弗蘭德地理學(xué)家杰拉杜斯·麥卡托提出來的，可追溯至1569年。

This technique works to more or less fit the countries of the globe on a two-dimensional piece of paper, and is great for ocean navigation. But it comes at the expense of accuracy - the Mercator projection makes countries close to the pole look much bigger than they really are.
這項(xiàng)技術(shù)基本上把地球上的各個(gè)國家安置在一張二維的紙上，而且它非常適用于遠(yuǎn)洋導(dǎo)航。但它是以精確度為代價(jià)的，因?yàn)槟ㄍ型队笆鼓切┛拷鼧O點(diǎn)的國家看上去比真實(shí)尺寸要大的多。

For example, Greenland looks roughly the same size as Africa on most maps, even though the African continent has 14 times more land mass.
例如，雖然非洲大陸有格陵蘭島14倍多那么大，但在多數(shù)地圖上，格陵蘭島看上去跟非洲差不多大。

But the new AuthaGraph design aimed to fix that, by dividing the globe up into 96 equal regions, and then transferring those dimensions from a sphere to a tetrahedron, before generating the final map.
然而，新版的AuthaGraph地圖旨在校正這個(gè)問題。它將地球分割成96塊均等區(qū)域，然后在生成最終版地圖之前把這些區(qū)域按比例從球體轉(zhuǎn)移到四面體上。

By taking a few steps to get from a rounded sphere to a flat map, Narukawa managed to maintain the correct area ratios of land and water.
明川用了幾個(gè)步驟把一個(gè)圓球變成了一幅平面地圖，并設(shè)法維持正確的水陸面積比。

This new map isn't perfect - and seeing as north isn't necessarily at the top, it might not be the best for navigation. But it's pretty close.
這幅新地圖并不是毫無瑕疵的，因?yàn)樗谋辈坎灰欢ㄔ陧敳?，因此用來?dǎo)航它可能不是最好的。

"The map [needs] a further step to increase a number of subdivision for improving its accuracy to be officially called an area-equal map," the Good Design Award description reads.
優(yōu)秀設(shè)計(jì)獎(jiǎng)簡(jiǎn)介上指出，“這幅地圖需進(jìn)一步加強(qiáng)細(xì)分來提高精確度，使其正式成為一幅面積均等的地圖?！?/div>

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