What is the meaning of the oval-shaped world maps with distorted continents?
Those maps are called equal-area or Mollweide projections. They are designed so that same-size regions on different parts of the Earth will have the same area in the image. The rectangular world maps, on the other hand (cartesian or cylindrical equidistant projections), cause continents near the North and South edges to appear larger than continents near the equator (Greenland, for example, which is only one-ninth the size of South America, appears to be almost the same size on the rectangular map).
