There is a flight going from Dallas Texas to Tokyo but they appear to be going all the way to Alaska before crossing and coming back down.
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Because that is closer to the most direct route between those two points. You are looking at a flat map, but this is just a projection of a mostly spherical map. If you looked at an actual globe you’d see this–the projection skews your perceptions.
EDIT:
You’re probably looking or envisioning a Mercator projection maps. Which east-west circle has a greater circumference?
A) The equator
B) The circle halfway between the equator and the pole
Clearly the equator represents a longer path than the circle at 45 degrees latitude, and yet the map you are looking at represents them as the exact same length (the both go from edge to edge). This is why Greenland looks so much larger than it actually is (it’s stretched considerable in the east-west direction.
What this means is that two points the same distance apart in an east-west direction are actually closer together than they appear on your flat map, so although the line is longer on your flat map, the actual distance on a round globe will shorter.
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