Anyone with a passing interest in geography is probably aware that the Mercator Map projection grossly distorts the size of some countries.
You can see by just how much on the following article: Map Projections: Mercator Vs The True Size of Each Country.
Alternatives do exist, which you can learn more about here: Map Projections & What They Say About You.
However, even I didn’t fully realise how distorted my view of the world was until I started playing around with Free Map Tools’ Measure a Distance tool.
Below are 7 maps showing just how much bigger and smaller some parts of the world are compared to what you probably think they are.
Length of Africa vs Russia East to West
The idea behind the map above has become somewhat of geography meme, but it’s still crazy to me that Africa is over 1,000km wider than the bit of Russia shown.
Length of Africa vs Russia North to South
The map above was somewhat inspired by the fact that you can travel from Norway to North Korea by only passing through one country.
The distance between the two is 6,100 km, or nearly 2,000 km less than the length of Africa North to South.
Length of Africa vs Greenland North to South
Greenland is famously the most distorted by the Mercator projection, they look almost the same size on the map above, but Africa is actually 14x larger by land area.
The North to South distance is also around 3x longer.
Length of Africa vs Greenland East to West
And if you look at the distance from East to West it’s even greater: Africa is 6x wider than Greenland.
Length of Africa vs North America North to South
So you probably already knew that Africa was longer than Greenland, but did you know it’s actually longer than the United States and Canada combined by over 1,700 km.
Length of North vs South America North to South
Finally, while North America is bigger than South America (24.709 million km2 vs 17,840,000 km2), it’s also more compact.
This means that South America extends both further North to South and East to West than you’d expect.
As the map above shows, the length of South America North to South is 1,500 km longer than the the tip of Canada down to the US-Mexico border.
Length of North vs South America East to West
And even going East to West South America is 800 km wider than the US.
Methodology: As mentioned above distances were measured using this tool. I used $200inaire blank Mercator projection to create each of the maps.
Moreover, distances are approximate. I didn’t necessarily try to find the absolute longest distance, and I rounded distances to the nearest 100km.
Know of any other similar examples? Leave them in the comment section below:
B. Alexander says
Are you sure that North America ends at the Mexican border?
George says
Mexico is North America too