No political baggage
No highlighted borders, no arbitrary centralities, no scales that mislead.
World cartography
See the world as it is.
Real Earth is my personal contribution to cartography. A humanistic and pragmatic proposal to see the planet printed on a sheet of paper at real sizes — without the distortions or political baggage of the everyday and school maps we inherit.
Every projection is an opinion. Let's choose it deliberately.
About the project
A personal initiative to rethink maps.
I've always seen school maps as biased. They show a world where Europe is large and central, Africa looks smaller than it really is, and Antarctica is reduced to a strip at the bottom of the map. This site is my personal contribution to cartography — a humanistic, pragmatic, non-mathematical attempt to square the circle: see the planet printed on a sheet of paper with real sizes.
I arrived at this proposal without taking previous cartographic work as a direct reference, deliberately seeking new solutions from scratch. The work has been manual and laborious — surely someone will be able to refine it computationally, but this approach was what mattered to me. Real Earth is not a repository of infinite iterations: it is my closed proposal, open to the world.
Humanistic approach
A pragmatic proposal made from experience as a map user, not from academic mathematics. Manual, laborious, open to being refined by others.
Free use with attribution
The maps are published under CC BY-SA 4.0: free use (including commercial) as long as the source is credited. If you use the images, the method or create a derivative version, please credit "Real Earth · Mosaic-23 Xara".
How to cite
When you use any map, method or variant of this proposal — in an article, book, classroom, website, exhibition or derivative product — credit the source with one of these forms:
- Short citation
Real Earth · Mosaic-23 Xara- Full citation
Real Earth · Mosaic-23 Xara projection (CC BY-SA 4.0) · realearth.cat
If you create a derivative version (recentering, thematic variants, teaching resources, etc.), the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence requires sharing it under the same licence.
What it brings
What Mosaic-23 brings compared to other projections.
Compared to Mercator, Gall-Peters, AuthaGraph or Dymaxion, this proposal brings together for the first time a set of properties that no conventional projection offers at once.
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Full Antarctica at scale
Seen from above as one more continent — not as a flattened strip at the bottom (Gall-Peters) or infinite at the edges (Mercator).
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Real continental sizes
Africa regains its real size (14 times larger than Greenland, not smaller as in Mercator).
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Faithful shapes
Every continent looks the way it actually is, without vertical stretching (Gall-Peters) or horizontal distortion (Mercator).
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Conventional rectangular format
Fits books, screens and posters, readable at a glance, no interruptions or unfoldings (unlike Dymaxion).
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America–Asia axis preserved
Keeps the cognitive familiarity of traditional world maps without forcing the viewer to relearn the planet's layout.
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Real geographic units
Divided by recognisable regions — India, Arabia, Madagascar... — not by arbitrary triangles (AuthaGraph) or icosahedra (Dymaxion).
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Zero distortion within each piece
Distortion is pushed to the seams — oceans and deserts where it doesn't visually matter.
Proposal
My proposal.
This is my cartographic proposal. It is not an iteration log or a repository open to endless versions — it is the personal contribution I want to leave to cartography, with its visual variants for different uses. If you want to collaborate on specific adaptations (recentering on another region, thematic variants, high resolution for printing), please contact me directly.
Mosaic-23 Xara Projection
Each continent with its own optimal projection, visually chained by shared boundary points. Nine visual variants — same geometry, different aesthetics.
- Technique
- Mosaic — one optimal projection per piece
- Source data
- NASA Blue Marble (5400×2700)
- Partitions
- 6 continents + 15 sub-regions (great-circle Voronoi)
- Composition
- Chained through shared boundary points
- Manual adjustments
- Arabia +12° and Asia +30° to close the Europe-Siberia gaps
Variants & downloads
Download any variant at maximum resolution in uncompressed PNG or optimised WebP.
Artistic variants
Base templates
Maps with flat colours and high contrast, intended as a starting point for creating new thematic variants or for technical print.
See technical detail
The problem
A 2D world map always distorts something: angles (Mercator), areas (Gall-Peters), shapes (Robinson)… a single cartographic projection is an impossible compromise.
The idea
Don't use a single projection: each continent or region gets its own optimal projection centred on its own geographic centroid. Then the fragments are composed onto a flat canvas.
1. Source data
- NASA Blue Marble texture (5400×2700) as geographic «truth».
- Automatic land/sea detection via the blue channel.
2. Sphere partitioning (Voronoi)
- 6 large regions: North America, South America, Antarctica, Africa, Eurasia, Australia.
- Each land pixel is assigned to the nearest centroid (great-circle distance).
3. Sub-regions for fine detail
- More than 15 sub-regions defined by bounding box (Europe, India, Mediterranean, Arabia, Iran, etc.).
- Each sub-region is extracted from its parent through mask subtraction.
4. Optimal projection per piece
For each piece:
- Centroid → rotation
Rthat brings it to the projection's north pole. - Equirectangular sampling in the rotated frame (minimal distortion at the centre).
- Mask with Gaussian blur for soft edges.
5. Chained composition
- 3 fixed anchors on the canvas (North America, Antarctica, Africa).
- The rest chained through shared boundary points between parent-child pieces. Examples:
- Asia connected to Arabia via the Strait of Hormuz point (26.5°N, 56.3°E).
- Europe connected to Africa via the Strait of Gibraltar.
6. Rigid rotations to integrate the whole
- Arabia rotates 12° CCW pivoting at the Sinai → naturally widens the Red Sea.
- Asia rotates 30° CCW pivoting at the Strait of Hormuz → closes the Europe-Siberia gap.
- Each rotation applies both to the content and the position on the canvas.
7. 3D view for Oceania
Indonesia, Thailand and the entire Indo-Pacific region are rendered with an orthographic projection (3D view from space). This shows the natural shape of the Indonesian archipelago as it would really look.
8. Final composition
Painted in layers with alpha-blending over a uniform ocean background.
Result
A flat map where each region keeps its authentic local shape, with connections manually tuned to minimise gaps and overlaps. Visual compromises are pushed into the ocean (open spaces) instead of the continents.
For press
Press kit for media, schools and publishers.
Includes press release, fact sheet, FAQ, quotes for interviews and the four high-resolution visual variants of the map. Free for editorial use with credit "Real Earth · Mosaic-23 Xara".
History
Cartographic background over time.
This section is split in two. Historical timeline: real maps from their era showing what humanity knew at the time. Projections on today's world: the same mathematical systems applied today over complete geography to see how each one actually distorts.
Historical timeline
Real maps from their era — each one is an artefact made at its moment and shows the world as it was known then. Starts at Blue Marble (1972), the first complete view of the planet, and the thread ends in remote antiquity.
Dec 1972
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The Blue Marble
The first complete photograph of the whole planet, taken on 7 December 1972 from about 45,000 km. For the first time, humanity sees Earth «as it is»: Africa, Arabia, Madagascar and Antarctica in a single image. This photo marks the zero point of what we consider «modern cartography» — every later representation is a variation on satellite data.
Jul 1972
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Landsat 1 — first cartographic satellite image
First image taken by the Landsat programme on 25 July 1972 over Dallas (Texas) — the first civilian satellite designed specifically for Earth cartography. Launched just months before Blue Marble. It opens the era of automated cartography: all modern digital cartography (Google Earth, OpenStreetMap, ICGC…) descends directly from this programme, now in its 9th generation (Landsat 9, 2021).
1855
Antarctica map (post-Ross)
One of the first general maps to incorporate the Antarctic coastlines discovered by the British expedition of James Clark Ross with HMS Erebus and Terror (1839-43). Victoria Land, the Ross Sea and the ice shelf are visible — geographic landmarks Ross named, appearing for the first time with a real outline after three centuries of imaginary «Terra Australis».
1784
General chart of Captain Cook's voyages
The first map showing the Pacific fully charted — and the definitive visual proof that no «Terra Australis Incognita» lay below the southern ocean. Cook sailed as far south as 71°S without finding any continent. The routes of the three voyages, the Australian coastline («New Holland»), New Zealand and the Pacific island network are visible. After this map, the «known» world left essentially only the poles to discover.
1648
Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Tabula
The most influential world map of the 17th century, with European cartography at its peak. Double hemisphere, baroque decoration, foreshadowing what would become Blaeu's Atlas Maior (1662-72) — the most expensive and sumptuous commercial atlas ever published (11 volumes, sold for the price of a house). An imaginary «Terra Australis» still appears, but the Americas and Asia are already quite accurate.
1569
Mercator projection
The original map printed in 18 sheets («Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio…»). Conformal projection designed for maritime navigation: straight lines correspond to constant-bearing routes. It enormously distorts areas at high latitudes — it is the origin of the «problem» in modern school cartography. Look at the bottom: Mercator draws an imaginary «Terra Australis», because Antarctica wouldn't be discovered until 1820.
1513
Piri Reis map
Surviving fragment (approximately 1/3 of the original map) painted on gazelle skin. It shows the Atlantic, West African coasts, Brazil and a southern strip that has fuelled centuries of debate. Piri Reis himself explains he synthesised Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and now-lost earlier sources — including a map attributed to Columbus.
1492
Erdapfel (Martin Behaim)
The oldest surviving terrestrial globe. Built in Nuremberg shortly before Columbus reached America — it does not show the American continent. A reminder that every representation is a child of its moment.
1459
Fra Mauro Mappa Mundi
Synthesis of European geographic knowledge just before the great voyages of exploration. Circular and oriented with south at the top (Arabic convention), it gathers information from merchants, navigators and Arabic maps. Preserved at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice.
1375
Catalan Atlas
Capital work of the Majorcan cartographic school. The 8 panels combine a Mediterranean portolan chart with detailed representations of Africa and Asia, full of kings, cities, animals and myths. It includes the first known representation of Mansa Musa in Mali. Preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
1154
Tabula Rogeriana
Commissioned by King Roger II of Sicily to the Andalusian geographer Al-Idrisi, it was the most accurate map of the known world for three centuries. Oriented with south at the top following Arabic convention. This version is the modern reconstruction by Konrad Miller (1929).
~150 / 1482
Ptolemy's Geographia
Alexandrian geographic treatise that systematised projection with latitude and longitude coordinates — the foundation of all later mathematical cartography. The 1482 Ulm printed edition (shown here) recovered its tables during the Renaissance and was the European standard for generations.
~600 BCE
Babylonian Imago Mundi
The oldest surviving world map. A small clay tablet with Akkadian cuneiform showing Babylon at the centre, surrounded by the Euphrates, a circular ocean and seven triangular islands with mythical lands. Preserved at the British Museum.
Projections on today's world
The same mathematical systems applied today over the complete geography of the planet (over the NASA Blue Marble base). This shows what each projection truly distorts.
2016
AuthaGraph
Rectangular projection derived from an unfolded tetrahedron. It preserves the relative areas of continents and oceans with great fidelity. It won the Good Design Grand Award in Japan. The image is a public approximation of the projection (the official version is patented by Narukawa).
2005
Cahill-Keyes
Octahedral butterfly-shaped map that minimises distortion by splitting the globe into 8 triangles. It preserves continent shapes quite well and can be assembled in multiple ways.
1973
Gall-Peters projection
Equal-area projection popularised as a political alternative to Mercator. It preserves real areas — Africa stops looking smaller than Greenland — at the cost of distorting shapes.
1963
Robinson projection
It preserves neither areas nor angles, but seeks a visually pleasing compromise. National Geographic used it as standard for decades.
1943
Dymaxion map (Fuller)
Projection on an unfoldable icosahedron. It has no fixed «up» — it can be oriented many ways — and shows all continents as a single connected island.
1923
Goode homolosine projection
«Interrupted» map that cuts the oceans to minimise continental distortion. It combines two equal-area projections (Mollweide and Sinusoidal) and faithfully preserves areas.
1921
Winkel Tripel
Compromise between area, distance and direction. Adopted by National Geographic in 1998 as successor to Robinson for its smaller distortion near the poles.
1805
Mollweide projection
Equal-area pseudocylindrical projection with an elliptical shape. Widely used in global thematic cartography — population distribution, climate phenomena — for its area fidelity.
1569
Mercator projection (applied to today's world)
The same mathematical algorithm of Mercator (straight lines = constant compass bearing) applied today over the real and complete geography of the planet. The «problem» becomes obvious — invisible in the 1569 original: Greenland looks larger than Africa (it's 14 times smaller), Antarctica stretches to infinity, northern European countries inflate.
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