MapChart brings a new view for the traditional world map: a map centered on the Pacific Ocean!
We are all used to the world maps we see everywhere being centered on the prime meridian, which runs through the location of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. This is a familiar view of our world, and a map you can easily make with the simple World map page on MapChart:
However, this is completely arbitrary, and nothing prevents us from having a Pacific-centered world map.
Indeed, you can now create a map centered around the Pacific Rim with MapChart:
On this new map layout, the central meridian is oriented between the 150° and 180° East. The map edges now run down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean instead of the Pacific, with Greenland getting split in two parts, instead of Russia.
As you can immediately see, Asia and Oceania are more prominent as they appear right in the center of the map. The Pacific Ocean appears in its entirety, reminding the map viewer of its sheer scope.
In fact, this world map version is widely used in countries like Australia, Japan, South Korea, etc. Indeed, there were many requests from users from that part of the world, that pushed me into developing and making such a map available!
Certainly, this new map can challenge your traditional perspective for world maps in general.
You can use it for learning purposes in geography classes or in presentations, when you need to give more focus on Asia or Oceania.
Also, as a reminder, currently you can use MapChart for creating a variety of world maps:
- The simple World map,
- The world with microstates map,
- The world subdivisions map,
- The advanced world map, with 9 different map projections to choose from,
- The “Wargames” hexagon map, and
- The new addition, the Pacific-centered world map.
Finally, this new map is fully compatible with the other country-level world maps: you can directly use a configuration file from a map you made with the simple world map, to upload it to the Pacific-centered world map, without issues.