FE Meme
UN Logo Uses an Old Map: So Earth Is Flat?
#7: The United Nations logo copies a 1,000-year-old map by Al-Biruni, "because it is correct" and Earth is flat.
The Meme
Portrait of Al-Biruni over the UN polar-projection emblem. Macro text top and bottom.
Why It Spreads
The UN emblem looks like a flat disk viewed from above, and pairing it with medieval scholar Al-Biruni plus "because it is correct" language turns a treaty logo into a confession. The visual trick works because most people never learned that polar azimuthal projections are deliberate flattenings of a sphere, not blueprints of physical shape.
What It Gets Wrong
The image pairs a historical Al-Biruni portrait with the UN polar azimuthal emblem and claims the logo copies a 1,000-year-old flat map because it is correct, but Al-Biruni himself estimated Earth's radius using spherical geometry in the 11th century. Polar projection art compresses a sphere onto a disk for display; it does not assert Earth is a two-dimensional plate, and latitude-dependent circumference C = 2πR cos(φ) shrinks toward the poles on a real spheroid. Treating a logo portrait composite as literal topography is inconsistent with GNSS positioning and southern-ocean great-circle routing that require an ellipsoid model. TestTheGlobe's Antarctica Is An Ice Wall and TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Explorer walk through the observations and predictions this image skips.
The Debunk
Polar projection art predicts the disk-like UN emblem while Earth remains a sphere; that fits how cartographers have drawn globes for centuries. Treating a logo portrait composite as literal topography is inconsistent with flight routing and latitude-dependent circumference. Use TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Explorer to compare the meme's claim with a measurable prediction.
- TestTheGlobe's Antarctica Is An Ice Wall: azimuthal projections compress a sphere onto a disk for viewing; they do not assert Earth is a two-dimensional plate.
- Al-Biruni computed Earth's radius from spherical geometry; TestTheGlobe's Latitude Circumference tool shows how circle size shrinks with latitude on a real spheroid, the opposite of a flat-disk claim.
- The image pairs a historical portrait with the UN polar emblem, not a side-by-side survey of Earth's shape; TestTheGlobe's Map Distortion Explorer lets you compare how polar, Mercator, and other projections stretch the same globe.
- TestTheGlobe's Flights Only Make Sense On A Flat Map debunk shows why southern routes and great-circle distances cannot be rebuilt from a logo alone.