While it’s well known that the mercator projection distorts the world, the maps here show very clearly by how much. Countries close to the equator barely change, whereas countries further north shrink dramatically.
The maps are all the work of climate data scientist @neilrkaye.
You can see an animation below:
The map also gives a bar graph to show the relative size of the world’s largest countries:
New True Size Comparison Tool
A Brilliant Maps Tool
The True Size of Every Country vs the Mercator Map
The Mercator projection stretches the world as you move away from the equator. Pick a country to see how big it looks on the map, and how big it really is.
Why the Mercator map lies about size
Gerardus Mercator published his famous projection in 1569 as a navigation chart. Its genius was that a straight line drawn on the map is a line of constant compass bearing, which made it invaluable for sailors. The price of that property is distortion: to keep compass directions straight, the projection must stretch the world horizontally and vertically by ever greater amounts as you move away from the equator.
The stretching follows a simple rule. At any latitude, distances on a Mercator map are inflated by one divided by the cosine of that latitude, so areas are inflated by the square of that amount. At the equator there is no inflation at all. At 45 degrees, areas appear twice their true size. At 60 degrees they appear four times too large, and by 75 degrees the map is showing you almost fifteen times too much country.
This is why Greenland looks comparable to Africa on the classic classroom wall map even though Africa is in reality about fourteen times larger, why Canada and Russia appear to dominate the globe, and why equatorial giants such as DR Congo, Indonesia and Brazil look far more modest than they really are. The shapes on this page are computed from real boundary data: the dashed red outline is each country exactly as the Mercator projection draws it, while the solid shape is the same country on an equal-area projection at the same nominal scale.
No flat map of a round planet can preserve everything at once. Mercator preserves angles and bearings; equal-area projections such as Mollweide or Equal Earth preserve size; nothing preserves both. The trick is simply to know what your map is lying to you about.
Finally, here's an example to what happens to Mexico and Greenland when you swap them:
And one final version:
See the animated version this map is based on at: https://engaging-data.com/country-sizes-mercator/.
Also, see:
Code Clements says
As a retired map reader, planner, totally amazing and wonderfully interesting
nidhi khanna says
superb work. thank you so much.
Martins says
Please show real map not minimized, how they look from space, all connectted
Paolo says
That’s simply not possible, or you have to distort the shape of each country. It’s simply not possible to project the correct size AND shape from a globe to a flat map. See e.g. Gall-Peters projection that retains the correct size, but not the shape.
James says
Maybe, if that is the correct size, the earth is not a globe, but a flat plane.
“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Spock.
asobrite says
you just have to type “world map” in google to find what you requested.
Sadagoapan Thiruvali says
Loved your maps. Especially that gif which scales down the distortion due to Meractor projection. That was awesome! May I use your images on Quora?
Brilliant Maps says
As long as you give credit back should be fine.
Bruce Packard says
The most impressive demonstration of this issue I’ve ever come across.
Keshav Brij says
Thank you very much. Your efforts counts and respect from my side. I am an Indian philosopher and and conducts talk sessions, for any help contact me via my mail address.
Owain says
Really cool projection, but it appears the world doesn’t fit together anymore. Are you planning on finishing the Atlas?
Joe says
Well done! Nicely highlights the impact of using conformal vs. equal are projections.
GutturalNinja says
Interesting! It completely breaks my understanding of world geography!
My impression is that terrestrial globes do not more accurately represent country sizes. Is that right? If so, why? Are globes more accurate? Could they be?
Chris says
The last map from Nazar is just a screenshot of my map here: https://engaging-data.com/country-sizes-mercator/
Fritz Weissgerber says
Thank you so much for your brilliant work. But why don’t you put the countries in the real size together, like Mercator? – Mercator should be canceled.
Jeff Hawkins says
I think it’s brilliant – such a simple and clever way of demonstrating the Mercator distortion.
Can I ask you to reconsider your response of 5 Dec 2021? Could one take the Mercator projection map of the world ( as you have) and place at the ‘centre of gravity’ of each country not a scaled version of the Mercator projection but a scaled version of a gnomonic projection of that country with its ‘tangent point’ placed on that country’s centre of gravity.
Yes, that’s a different tangent point for each country.
Is it doable? Or a disproportionate ( sorry for the pun) amount of work
Thank you
Brilliant Maps says
Cool idea, but beyond my capabilities
gideon Yuval says
If you move the north pole to another location you can get shapes as good as Mercator’s, and way less area distortion. See https://mrgris.com/projects/merc-extreme/#67256276@-37.10525,-12.27768 , using Tristan de Cunha as “north pole”
N.B. The African Union is officially griping re: Mercator