Buckminster Fuller Dymaxion Map Print

The Fuller Projection Map, also known as the Dymaxion Map, is the only flat map of the entire surface of the Earth which reveals our planet as one island in one ocean, without any visually obvious distortion of the relative shapes and sizes of the land areas and without splitting the continents. It was developed by R. Buckminster Fuller who, “By 1954, after working on the map for several decades,” finally realized a “satisfactory deck plan of the six and one half sextillion tons Spaceship Earth.”

The Dymaxion Map was co-developed by Shoji Sadao who contributed to its evolution at a key point in the process. 

Fuller was one of many to recognize how maps shape our worldview, policy and decisions. The most common map is the Mercator projection, and this represents distortions such as Greenland appearing as large as all of Africa (in fact it is 13x smaller).

The Dymaxion Map was a way to right-size our view of Spaceship Earth and thus equip humanity with a better tool to address existential challenges and systems interventions.

Dymaxion Air Ocean World Map, 1980, 29 color screenprint on 100% Rag Paper, 18" x 35"