If you are making web maps, understanding distortion is critical. Here, we use @maplibre.org GL JS's draw control to draw two rectangles of seemingly similar size... ...then use MapLibre's new globe control to reveal that the two shapes are actually much different.

Want to try this out for yourselves? You don't need much R code: library(mapgl) maplibre(style = maptiler_style("outdoor")) |> add_globe_control() |> add_draw_control()