NavList:

   

Reply

----- Original Message -----
From: "George Huxtable" ... It reminds me of the World Maps I have come
across in Australia, shown with
> South up, which is a perfectly valid point of view. Some of them show the
> Australian continent considerably inflated compared with everywhere else,
> which is somewhat less acceptable.

Having seen a few of these I've never noticed any distortion - could it just
be the unfamiliar effect of seeing the world inverted, with Australia (big
enough anyway) sitting at the top? There are also postcards available with
Australia's outline superimposed on Europe or North America (hopefully in
correct proportion) that show that this continent (or large island, as you
like) is  roughly the same size as Europe or the United States.

>  But the prize goes to Tasmania, that
> small and beautiful island to the South of Australia, where they tend to
> refer to the Australian mainland as "The North Island", and show maps with
> an inverted and inflated Tasmania dominating a shrunken mini-Australia
> below.
>
 Just as in the Orkney Islands they refer to Scotland just to the south as
'the Mainland' and see themselves as quite different, which is fair enough,
being largely descended from Vikings. (Trying to be vaguely on-topic).. the
Tasmanians particularly resent their island being left off any
representation of the map, which happens often enough. Having water
separating lands does effectively isolate them to a remarkable extent, just
look at how the British Isles have managed to remain so different to the
rest of Europe in so many ways. When there was a move towards the end of the
19th century to meld together the separate colonies (now known as states) in
a united Australia, New Zealand was invited to join, but preferred to go it
alone, afraid that their isolation would leave them forgotten and
neglected - like Tasmania but worse.

   

Reply