We all know most maps of the world aren't entirely accurate. For starters, Africa is way bigger than it looks, and Greenland isn't nearly so vast.
我們都知道多數世界地圖並不完全準確。首先，非洲比看上去要大的多，而格陵蘭島根本就沒有那麼大。
But now a designer in Japan has created a map that's so accurate it's almost as good as a globe, and it's probably one of the best estimations you'll see of the real size of countries.
但如今一位日本設計師設計了一幅非常精確的地圖，幾乎就像地球儀那樣精確。在這幅地圖上，你會看到各個國家的實際大小，而它很可能是最佳尺寸估算之一了。
The design, called AuthaGraph, is so good, it's just taken out Japan's biggest design accolade, the Good Design Award.
被稱為AuthaGraph的這幅地圖非常不錯，而且它剛剛摘得日本設計屆最高榮譽——優秀設計獎。
Created by artist and architect Hajime Narukawa, the map looks pretty weird at first glance, with an orientation shift between Asia and North America, but it's actually one of the most proportional maps we've got.
這幅地圖是由藝術家兼建築師鳴川肇設計的。乍看之下，這幅地圖十分詭異，因為亞洲和北美洲的方位變了，但實際上這是我們能夠拿到的最有比例性的地圖之一了。
That's because creating a precise a flat map of our spherical planet is incredibly hard.
因為設計一幅精確的星球平面地圖非常困難。
The map you're used to seeing pinned on classroom walls and in Atlases is known as a Mercator projection, and was first presented by the Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator back in 1569.
過去常被釘在教室牆上而且常出現在地圖冊中的那幅地圖以墨卡託投影著稱，最早是由弗蘭德地理學家傑拉杜斯·麥卡託提出來的，可追溯至1569年。
This technique works to more or less fit the countries of the globe on a two-dimensional piece of paper, and is great for ocean navigation. But it comes at the expense of accuracy - the Mercator projection makes countries close to the pole look much bigger than they really are.
這項技術基本上把地球上的各個國家安置在一張二維的紙上，而且它非常適用於遠洋導航。但它是以精確度為代價的，因為墨卡託投影使那些靠近極點的國家看上去比真實尺寸要大的多。
For example, Greenland looks roughly the same size as Africa on most maps, even though the African continent has 14 times more land mass.
例如，雖然非洲大陸有格陵蘭島14倍多那麼大，但在多數地圖上，格陵蘭島看上去跟非洲差不多大。
But the new AuthaGraph design aimed to fix that, by dividing the globe up into 96 equal regions, and then transferring those dimensions from a sphere to a tetrahedron, before generating the final map.
然而，新版的AuthaGraph地圖旨在校正這個問題。它將地球分割成96塊均等區域，然後在生成最終版地圖之前把這些區域按比例從球體轉移到四面體上。
By taking a few steps to get from a rounded sphere to a flat map, Narukawa managed to maintain the correct area ratios of land and water.
明川用了幾個步驟把一個圓球變成了一幅平面地圖，並設法維持正確的水陸面積比。
This new map isn't perfect - and seeing as north isn't necessarily at the top, it might not be the best for navigation. But it's pretty close.
這幅新地圖並不是毫無瑕疵的，因為它的北部不一定在頂部，因此用來導航它可能不是最好的。
"The map [needs] a further step to increase a number of subdivision for improving its accuracy to be officially called an area-equal map," the Good Design Award description reads.
優秀設計獎簡介上指出，「這幅地圖需進一步加強細分來提高精確度，使其正式成為一幅面積均等的地圖。」
（編輯：何瑩瑩）