The Real Size of the World: Maps Have Been Lying to You (But Not on Purpose!)

December 20, 2016 Alex

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You know that world map you’ve seen a thousand times? The one hanging in classrooms and offices everywhere? Well, I hate to break it to you, but it’s been playing tricks on your mind. As someone who works with maps every day, I still get surprised when I show people how different our world actually looks.

Here’s the thing: we’ve got a problem that’s literally impossible to solve. We’re trying to wrap a globe (think: orange peel) onto a flat surface (think: your screen right now). Something’s got to give, and what gives is accuracy.

Mercator projection — *Look at this – the blue overlays show how much our usual maps stretch things out. The light blue shows what we usually see, and the dark blue shows the real size.*

Want to have your mind blown? Greenland isn’t actually the size of a continent – it’s way smaller than most people think. On most maps, it looks almost as big as Africa. The reality? Africa is about 14 times bigger. That’s like comparing a basketball to a beach ball!

What’s Really Going On Here?

Mercator maps distort distances, stretching areas further from the equator. It’s like pulling on a rubber band – the middle stays the same, but the edges get stretched way out of shape.

This leads to some pretty crazy revelations:

You could fit the entire USA, China, AND India inside Africa – with room left over for dessert
Texas is big, sure, but it would get lost in the Sahara Desert
Australia? It’s way bigger than most people think – you could fit most of Europe inside it

Map of correctly sized countries — *Here’s a cool way to see actual country sizes – each rectangle shows the true size of a country. No stretching, no squishing. (Thanks to Reddit user neilrkaye for putting this together)*

The Real Giants of Our Planet

Let’s talk about Africa for a second. Pull up any regular map, and sure, Africa looks big. But the real story? It’s HUGE. You could take China, all of Western Europe, India, Argentina, and throw in Scandinavia for good measure – and they’d all fit inside Africa’s borders. Still have room for a few more countries, actually.

The true size of Africa Mapped — *I made this using thetruesize.com – it shows how the US, China, and India would all fit inside Africa.*

Here are some other fun size surprises:

Madagascar is bigger than Sweden (bet you didn’t see that coming!)
Japan would stretch right down the US East Coast
Brazil is almost as big as the whole United States
The Democratic Republic of Congo is 75 times bigger than Belgium (which used to run it)

Want to blow your own mind for a while? Head over to thetruesize.com and start dragging countries around. Fair warning: you might lose an hour or two, but you’ll never look at a map the same way again.

What do you think? Did any of these size comparisons surprise you? Have you noticed other ways maps mess with our heads? Drop a comment below – I’d love to hear what shocked you the most!

What’s Really Going On Here?

The Real Giants of Our Planet

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