In the average 2016 contest on the new map, Democrats would have carried an average of 8.4 districts (out of 18), even though Democrats won the statewide popular vote in the average contest. The median congressional district favored the Republicans by a point in the average 2016 contest.

Over all, the new court-ordered map comes very close to achieving partisan symmetry in an evenly divided state.

The seeming contradiction between the analysis based on partisan symmetry and one based on simulated nonpartisan congressional districts gets at the heart of what may be the next big debate in gerrymandering: whether nonpartisan maps should strive for partisan symmetry, or whether they should try to avoid political considerations altogether.

The question is important because both methods of analysis are routinely employed to identify Republican gerrymanders.

And it is likely to continue to be a question, because it emerges when Democrats are at a geographic disadvantage, as they often tend to be. Just look at Pennsylvania. Democrats waste more votes than Republicans by carrying urban areas, like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, by more lopsided margins than the Republicans carry their best areas. The result is that the rest of the state, and therefore the rest of its districts, tend to favor Republicans.

If one believes that partisan symmetry should be a goal in redistricting, the new map is eminently fair. It gives both parties a similar chance to translate their votes to seats, and makes no compromises to do so; it still admirably adheres to standard nonpartisan criteria like compactness or minimizing county splits.

The Upshot analysis also helps address a more arcane matter in the debate about the new court-ordered map: why many nonpartisan analysts thought it favored Democrats, even though it seemed to score well — it wasn’t an outlier — by the measure of Mr. Chen’s analysis. The reason is simple: Most nonpartisan analysts have judged the map by today’s electoral landscape, while Mr. Chen’s analysis used elections from 2008 and 2010.