I don't think it's particularly debatable that more people live in Europe and Africa and South America (the most notably distorted landmasses in the Pacific-centered map) than in Alaska, Eastern Russia, and the few Pacific isles that aren't tucked right in next to Continental Asia and Australia. The most populous nation negatively affected by a Pacific split is probably New Zealand, and that only represents about five million people. The most populous nation negatively affected by an Atlantic split is probably Brazil, with over forty times as many people.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you can see South America is distorted as an entire continent in the pictured map, then you should be able to realize the PM split does the same to Eastern Asia. China alone has triple the population of South America. Also going to point out the standard split is not really in the Atlantic, but through England, France, and Spain, and is so far east of the North Atlantic that about 8 African countries lie entirely west of the center.

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

If it supports your use case, sure. But splitting down the Pacific doesn't distort China and the rest of East Asia nearly as much as splitting down the Atlantic distorts South America and Africa, because Asia is much further from any reasonable dividing line than South America is.

And splitting through mainland Europe and Africa would only compound the problem, since it would put all of that distortion right down the middle of two very populous continents. If you're in a use case where a distortion that big is immaterial, it probably doesn't matter much where you split the map; you can probably just center the map over whichever country or region you're trying to focus the map on, and not even bother showing the other hemisphere.