From the Robinson to the Winkel Tripel

[quadibloc]

A friend of mine dragged me to the Reuse Centre in Edmonton, where I picked up a few free items as she picked up several for use in her craft activities. Among them were three issues of the National Geographic magazine. One of them was the one with a holographic cover that happened to be the one where the famous switchover from the Van der Grinten projection to the Robinson projection took place; it was accompanied by an article in the magazine about map projections.
This led me to some web searches in which I learned something.
Most sources give 1998 as the year the National Geographic switched again, from the Robinson projection to the Winkel Tripel. But I came across a page on the National Geographic site which stated that this change happened in their April, 1995 issue.
This surprised me. Why the discrepancy? It turned out that, while the first map supplement on the Winkel Tripel projection accompanied the April, 1995 issue, it was a map of earthquake zones. And the National Geographic magazine had used other projections for special purpose maps on many occasions. So, presumably, it was only in 1998 that they used the Winkel Tripel for their flagship political world map - or even a physical world map.

[daan]

I still have that issue. It’s what set me off on map projections. I saw the Robinson and thought, “Surely I can do better than that…”

— daan

[rschmunk]

I paid no attention to the projection until after the NGS/MGS/MOLA Mars map using the WT was published. Which seems to have been later than I originally would have guessed, apparently 2001 at the earliest.

[daan]

Most sources give 1998 as the year the National Geographic switched again, from the Robinson projection to the Winkel Tripel. But I came across a page on the National Geographic site which stated that this change happened in their April, 1995 issue.
This surprised me. Why the discrepancy? It turned out that, while the first map supplement on the Winkel Tripel projection accompanied the April, 1995 issue, it was a map of earthquake zones. And the National Geographic magazine had used other projections for special purpose maps on many occasions. So, presumably, it was only in 1998 that they used the Winkel Tripel for their flagship political world map - or even a physical world map.

I visited National Geographic headquarters in 1996 (possibly 1995) to discuss projection use and Geocart (they were using it). I brought up their switch to Winkel, which I found surprising both for the lack of fanfare—completely unlike the Robinson switch—as well as for how short a time the Robinson had lasted. I was amused to be told that the primary reason for using Winkel in the earthquake map was that they liked its aspect ratio better for page display. They sought assurance that it was a good choice. It was, in fact, one of the candidates I had brought samples of, so I assured them that its distortion characteristics were surprisingly good for such a simple contrivance. They also obliquely intimated that the Robinson switch was partially politically motivated. I did not probe them on that, but I got the impression it was a statement against Peters and deference to Arthur Robinson’s enormous influence in mid 20th century American cartography.

— daan