Disregard what you learned in geography class—Earth may not have seven continents after all. From the earliest of grades, schoolchildren around the world have memorized the same lineup: Africa, ...

Every map of the world that you have ever seen is inaccurate. Well, of course, you might think. How could they map out the world when it's round, not flat? True. But that isn't the point. See, the ...

Cartographers rely on the authority of maps to communicate locations, guide navigation at sea, and shape people’s perceptions ...

It's a problem that has plagued cartographers for centuries: How do you accurately represent a round world on a flat map? The most common world map used today, designed almost 450 years ago, is highly ...

The African Union endorsed a map that reflects the truer relative size of the continent. (map public domain via Equal Earth) The African Union, an intergovernmental organization of 55 African ...

Russell McLendon is a science writer with expertise in the natural environment, humans, and wildlife. He holds degrees in journalism and environmental anthropology. Like all planets, Earth isn't flat.

Imagine if Greenland bordered Portugal, Brazil no longer had a coastline, and Tibet suddenly lay by the sea. It sounds unimaginable, but this was actually the case about 300 million years ago. The ...