로빈슨 세계지도 (2016)

Global Citizenship Map As a global citizen, what kind of world map are you looking at? Picture a world map in your mind. What is the biggest continent on that map? North America, Europe, Asia, Africa…. A teacher asked students to write down the continents in the order of their sizes, big to small. Many wrote North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, the correct order is Asia, Africa, North America, and Europe. An interesting thing is students’ perception of Africa. Africa is the second largest continent in the world, but most students aren’t aware of how big Africa actually is. As a matter of fact, Africa is much bigger than most of us think. Even if we combine Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, the United States, Mexico, Peru, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Papua New Guinea, and New Zealand all together, it would still be smaller than Africa. Then, how come Africa is so small in our mind? This is because world maps, created by the Mercator projection, depict Africa smaller than it is. This depiction of Africa reflects a western perspective that traces back to the age of imperialism. European countries colonized many African countries, and they wanted to minimize the significance of Africa in our mind. Additionally, as world maps flatten the spherical globe, continents closer to the poles are depicted bigger than the rest. To overcome this limitation of the Mercator projection, the Robinson projection was created. The Robinson projection was created in an effort to better represent the actual size of each continent. VANK(Voluntary Agency Network of Korea) made the Global Citizenship Map by using the Robinson projection. Look at our Global Citizenship Map, see the world with different perspectives, and think about how to see the world as a global citizen.