{"id":1113,"date":"2026-07-21T20:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T04:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2026-07-21T20:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T04:14:15","slug":"equal-earth-vs-mercator-projections-of-50-of-the-worlds-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/?p=1113","title":{"rendered":"Equal Earth vs. Mercator Projections of 50% of the World\u2019s Population"},"content":{"rendered":"
<p>A recent <a href="https:\/\/mastodon.online\/@infobeautiful@vis.social\/116959013106803416">posting<\/a> on Mastodon showed a map dividing the world’s population into two parts geographically.\u00a0 The map uses the <a href="https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mercator_projection">Mercator projection<\/a>.\u00a0 My wife wondered what the same population division would look like using the <a href="https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Equal_Earth_projection">Equal Earth<\/a> projection.\u00a0 I did not know about “Equal Earth” and thus learned about it.\u00a0 To fulfill my wife’s every wish, I, ever the romantic, undertook to build an Equal Earth map.<\/p>\n<img class=" wp-image-1114" src="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260721_203849_Tue.png" alt="" width="495" height="612" \/> Original Mastodon map dividing the world population into two approximately equal groups\n<p>I downloaded an SVG <a href="https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3ABlank_world_map_Equal_Earth_projection.svg">map<\/a> using Equal Earth projections from Wikimedia Commons and I obtained the ISO country codes and population from <a href="https:\/\/download.geonames.org\/export\/dump\/countryInfo.txt">geonames.org<\/a>. These figures are drawn from the population values contained in the GeoNames countryInfo.txt dataset downloaded on July 21, 2026; the underlying estimates may originate from earlier years.\u00a0 I isolated the data I’m interested in with:<\/p>\n<pre>awk -F '\\t' '\r\nBEGIN {\r\nOFS=","\r\nprint "iso2","country","population"\r\n}\r\n!\/^#\/ {\r\ngsub(\/"\/, "\\"\\"", $5)\r\nprint $1, "\\"" $5 "\\"", $8\r\n}\r\n' countryInfo.txt > country_population.csv<\/pre>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p>I then identified the countries depicted in yellow in the original map and calculated their combined population in a spreadsheet. and calculated their population on my <a href="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/country_population.ods">spreadsheet<\/a>.\u00a0 The total world population is 7,624,210,908.\u00a0 These countries constitute 3,785,632,364 which is 49.65%.<\/p>\n<img class="size-full wp-image-1115" src="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20260721_204759_Tue.png" alt="" width="663" height="360" \/> Countries shown in yellow and their reported populations\n<p>I then inserted the country codes into the CSS to colorize the group yellow:<\/p>\n<pre><span style="color: #00cd00;"><b>jlpoole@jp<\/b><\/span><span style="color: #9d9df7;"><b> ~\/work\/maps $<\/b><\/span> head -n 25 equal_earth_population_50_Percent.svg\r\n<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>\r\n<svg xmlns="http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg" width="2048.00" height="996.796" viewBox="-180.000 -87.6091 360.000 175.218" version="1.1">\r\n\t<title>Blank world map (de facto country borders)<\/title>\r\n\t<desc>\r\n\t\tA map of the world, showing all countries' de facto borders in 2022, with major lakes overlaid. Border data is taken from <a href="http:\/\/www.naturalearthdata.com\/">Natural Earth<\/a>. Equal Earth projection.\r\n\t<\/desc>\r\n\t<style type="text\/css">\r\n\t\t\/* countries that have not been styled otherwise are gray *\/\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n.BD, .BT, .BN, .KH, .CN, .IN, .JP, .LA, .MY, .MM,\r\n.NP, .KP, .PK, .PH, .SG, .KR, .LK, .TW, .TH, .VN {\r\n fill: #F7DB91;\r\n}\r\n\r\n.country {\r\n fill: #C6562E;\r\n stroke: #000000;\r\n stroke-width: 0.25px;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t\t\/* small-country circles are hidden by default *\/\r\n\t\tcircle {\r\n<span style="color: #00cd00;"><b>jlpoole@jp<\/b><\/span><span style="color: #9d9df7;"><b> ~\/work\/maps $<\/b><\/span> \r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>And, <em>voil\u00e0<\/em> :<\/p>\n<a href="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/equal_earth_population_50_Percent.svg"><img class=" wp-image-1116" role="img" src="https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/equal_earth_population_50_Percent.svg" alt="" width="543" height="264" \/><\/a> 50% of World Population\n<p> <\/p>\n<\/div>

A recent posting<\/a> on Mastodon showed a map dividing the world’s population into two parts geographically.\u00a0 The map uses the Mercator projection<\/a>.\u00a0 My wife wondered what the same population division would look like using the Equal Earth<\/a> projection.\u00a0 I did not know about “Equal Earth” and thus learned about it.\u00a0 To fulfill my wife’s every wish, I, ever the romantic, undertook to build an Equal Earth map.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Original Mastodon map dividing the world population into two approximately equal groups<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I downloaded an SVG map<\/a> using Equal Earth projections from Wikimedia Commons and I obtained the ISO country codes and population from geonames.org<\/a>. These figures are drawn from the population values contained in the GeoNames countryInfo.txt dataset downloaded on July 21, 2026; the underlying estimates may originate from earlier years.\u00a0 I isolated the data I’m interested in with:<\/p>\n

awk -F '\\t' '\r\nBEGIN {\r\nOFS=\",\"\r\nprint \"iso2\",\"country\",\"population\"\r\n}\r\n!\/^#\/ {\r\ngsub(\/\"\/, \"\\\"\\\"\", $5)\r\nprint $1, \"\\\"\" $5 \"\\\"\", $8\r\n}\r\n' countryInfo.txt > country_population.csv<\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n
I then identified the countries depicted in yellow in the original map and calculated their combined population in a spreadsheet. and calculated their population on my spreadsheet<\/a>.\u00a0 The total world population is 7,624,210,908.\u00a0 These countries constitute 3,785,632,364 which is 49.65%.<\/p>\n
\"\"
Countries shown in yellow and their reported populations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I then inserted the country codes into the CSS to colorize the group yellow:<\/p>\n
jlpoole@jp<\/b><\/span> ~\/work\/maps $<\/b><\/span> head -n 25 equal_earth_population_50_Percent.svg\r\n<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" standalone=\"no\"?>\r\n<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"2048.00\" height=\"996.796\" viewBox=\"-180.000 -87.6091 360.000 175.218\" version=\"1.1\">\r\n\t<title>Blank world map (de facto country borders)<\/title>\r\n\t<desc>\r\n\t\tA map of the world, showing all countries' de facto borders in 2022, with major lakes overlaid. Border data is taken from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.naturalearthdata.com\/\">Natural Earth<\/a>. Equal Earth projection.\r\n\t<\/desc>\r\n\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\r\n\t\t\/* countries that have not been styled otherwise are gray *\/\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n.BD, .BT, .BN, .KH, .CN, .IN, .JP, .LA, .MY, .MM,\r\n.NP, .KP, .PK, .PH, .SG, .KR, .LK, .TW, .TH, .VN {\r\n    fill: #F7DB91;\r\n}\r\n\r\n.country {\r\n    fill: #C6562E;\r\n    stroke: #000000;\r\n    stroke-width: 0.25px;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t\t\/* small-country circles are hidden by default *\/\r\n\t\tcircle {\r\njlpoole@jp<\/b><\/span> ~\/work\/maps $<\/b><\/span> \r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n
And, voil\u00e0<\/em> :<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a>
50% of World Population<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
 <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<p>A recent <a href="https:\/\/mastodon.online\/@infobeautiful@vis.social\/116959013106803416">posting<\/a> on Mastodon showed a map dividing the world’s population into two parts geographically.\u00a0 The map uses the <a href="https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mercator_projection">Mercator projection<\/a>.\u00a0 My wife wondered what the same population division would look like using the <a href="https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Equal_Earth_projection">Equal Earth<\/a> projection.\u00a0 I did not know about “Equal Earth” and thus learned about it.\u00a0 To fulfill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gfmr_meta_descriptions":[],"_gfmr_multilingual_taxonomy_terms":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[139,138],"class_list":["post-1113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maps","tag-equal-earth","tag-map"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1122,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}