First part of the answer: TheoryGeo-positionning would have been easy if maps were all built the same way.
But there are dozens of map types due to the "map projection" choice.
So we decided that BeGraphic wouldn't handle the geo-positionning algorithm.
In "map projection", you have to decide between
- showing the right direction/shape of all countries (coast & border)... but then the north and south poles (small points) become as large as the equator line (the largest part of the earth) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator
- showing the right surface... but then the shape of all countries far from the equator line won't have meaningful shapes (not usable coast & border for sailors). By the way, the method to distord a map to get plausible surface is called Cartogram.
- preserving distance our shortest way or...
- a mix of previous choices (each country has its own balanced solution, mainly optimized for itself)
If you want more details, look for "Map projection" in wikipedia: