An endless world map: Viewing the world through “Authagraph”

Hajime NARUKAWA

Mr. Narukawa is the inventor of Authagraph, a world map designed to fit the world into a rectangle while almost perfectly maintaining the continents' relative size. It is mathematically impossible to precisely project the earth's sphere onto a rectangle. As such, previous methods would succeed in either taking on a rectangular shape or being true to the size ratio and shape of each continent, but never in both. Authagraph is groundbreaking in that it takes on both of those qualities, making it applicable to various themes such as sea routes, geology, meteorology and world history in ways never thought possible.

translated by Masa Daniel Siu, Ako Haneda, Rie Ikeda, ABC Loop

An endless world map: Viewing the world through “Authagraph”