Which of these World Maps would you rather read?

All maps of the world are distorted, by necessity.

There are different ways to project the features of the globe onto a 2-dimensional surface, and many different cartographers have suggested solutions to this problem. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia's article about the Mercatur Projection:

 "Like all map projections that attempt to fit a curved surface onto a flat sheet, the shape of the map is a distortion of the true layout of the Earth's surface. The Mercator projection exaggerates the size of areas far from the equator. For example:

    * Greenland is presented as being roughly as large as Africa, when in fact Africa's area is approximately 14 times that of Greenland.
    * Alaska is presented as being similar or even slightly larger in size than Brazil, when Brazil's area is actually more than 5 times that of Alaska.
    * Finland is presented as being as high as India, when in reality India is higher than Finland

As a result of these criticisms, modern atlases no longer use the Mercator projection for world maps or for areas distant from the equator, preferring other cylindrical projections, or forms of equal-area projection. The Mercator projection is still commonly used for areas near the equator, however, where distortion is minimal."