Equal Earth Maps Using Cloud-Optimized Formats

Pirmin Kalberer

CNG Zürich 2026

The current state of Web Mapping

  • Web Mercator projection
  • Sometimes a globe

Web Mercator - the bad parts

Africa actually has 14 times as much area as Greenland

Equal Earth map projection

Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson, Bernhard Jenny, 2018

https://www.equal-earth.com/

Cloud-optimized formats

  • Raster
    • Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF
    • GeoZarr
  • Vector
    • GeoParquet
    • FlatGeobuf
  • Containers
    • PMTiles
    • SOZip
  • Point clouds
    • COPC

PMTiles (Raster)

https://equal.bbox.earth/pmtiles/

FlatGeobuf

https://equal.bbox.earth/fgb/

Dynamic center meridian:

https://openlayers.org/en/latest/examples/equal-earth-geojson.html

GeoParquet

https://equal.bbox.earth/geoparquet/

GeoZarr

https://equal.bbox.earth/geozarr/

Behaviour for interactive maps

Proposals:

  • Dynamic center meridian
  • Transition to Mercator for higher zoom levels

A New Interactive Equal-Area Map

Equal-area projection with transition to Mercator

https://www.benjoffe.com/map

Takeaways

  • Equal Earth is here - use it!
  • Basic support for cloud-native formats
  • Web mapping libraries need support for antimeridians != 180°

Thank you

Pirmin Kalberer

mapstodon.space/@implgeo