You’ve probably spent years looking at a world map and thinking Greenland is this massive, icy titan that could swallow most of Africa. Or maybe you’ve looked at Russia and assumed it’s basically half the planet.
Honestly? It’s all a lie. Well, maybe not a deliberate lie, but a mathematical side effect that has warped our collective brain for centuries.
The real sizes of countries look almost nothing like what you see on the standard Mercator projection hanging in every classroom from London to Los Angeles. When you actually start sliding countries around a globe—like a digital puzzle—the results are genuinely jarring. Brazil is secretly a giant. Africa is basically a continent-sized container for every other major nation. And Greenland? It’s barely the size of a single large African country.
The Mercator problem (or why the poles look huge)
Gerardus Mercator wasn’t trying to trick you back in 1569. He was trying to help sailors.
He needed a map where a straight line was a constant compass bearing. To get that, he had to stretch the sphere of the Earth onto a flat cylinder. Think about it like trying to flatten an orange peel without it tearing; you have to pull the top and bottom edges apart to make them square.
The result is a "conformal" map. It preserves shapes and angles, which is great for not crashing your ship into a reef. But the cost is the area. The further you move away from the Equator, the more the map stretches everything out.
Basically, the closer a country is to the North or South Pole, the more it "inflates" like a balloon.
Greenland vs. Africa: The ultimate ego check
This is the classic example everyone points to, and for good reason. On a standard map, Greenland and Africa look roughly the same size.
In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland.
If you dragged Greenland down to the Equator, it would suddenly look tiny. It has an area of roughly 2.1 million square kilometers. That sounds big until you realize Africa is 30.3 million square kilometers. You could actually fit the United States, China, India, Japan, and most of Europe inside the borders of Africa—and you’d still have room for a few more countries.
Brazil is the secret giant of the South
Most people underestimate South America in general. Because it’s closer to the Equator, it doesn’t get that "Mercator boost" that North America and Europe enjoy.
Take Brazil.
If you took Brazil and moved it up to Europe, it would cover almost the entire continent. It’s actually larger than the contiguous United States. It's nearly 5 times larger than Alaska, even though Alaska looks like a monster on the map.
I remember the first time I saw an overlay of Brazil on top of Europe; it felt like a glitch in the Matrix. You’ve got this one country that is essentially its own subcontinent, yet we often think of it as "just another country in South America."
Russia is big, but not THAT big
Russia is the largest country on Earth. That is an absolute fact.
But on a Mercator map, it looks like it occupies 25% of the world's land. It looks like it could eat Africa for breakfast.
Not quite.
Africa is actually nearly twice as large as Russia. Africa clocks in at around 30 million $km^2$, while Russia is about 17 million $km^2$. When you slide Russia down toward the Equator, it shrinks significantly in your eyes. It’s still massive—stretching across eleven time zones—but it no longer looks like it’s the size of the entire moon.
The "True Size" of the North vs. South
The map we use has a weird way of making the Global North look dominant. Europe looks huge. Canada looks like it's a third of the world.
But check these stats:
- Madagascar is more than twice the size of Great Britain.
- India is roughly the same size as one-third of the entire European continent.
- Antarctica is about 1.4 times the size of the United States, yet on some maps, it looks like an infinite white wall at the bottom of the world.
- Australia is almost the same size as the contiguous USA. People often think of it as a "large island," but it’s a massive landmass that would cover most of Europe.
Why does this matter in 2026?
It’s not just about trivia. How we see the world shapes how we value different parts of it.
If Africa and South America look small, we subconsciously treat them as less significant. This is why the Gall-Peters projection or the Equal Earth projection have become so popular in recent years. These maps prioritize area over shape.
Sure, the continents look a bit "stretched" or "smashed" vertically, but the real sizes of countries are preserved. You see the true scale of the tropical regions. You see that the "Global South" is physically much larger than the "Global North."
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How to see the truth for yourself
You don't have to take my word for it. There are tools now that let you play God with geography.
- The True Size Of: This is a web tool where you can type in any country and drag it around the map. Watch the USA shrink as it hits the Equator or watch Indonesia become a giant as it moves toward the North Pole.
- Google Earth: Because it’s a 3D globe, it doesn’t have the Mercator distortion. If you want to see the real relationship between landmasses, look at a globe, not a flat sheet of paper.
- Equal Earth Maps: If you’re buying a map for your wall, look for "Equal Area" projections. They might look "wrong" at first because you aren't used to them, but they are far more honest about the world we actually live in.
Geography is kinda wild when you realize how much our tools shape our perspective. Next time you look at a map, just remember: things are almost certainly bigger (or smaller) than they appear.
Your Map-Checking Action Plan
- Step 1: Go to a site like TheTrueSize.com.
- Step 2: Search for your home country.
- Step 3: Drag it to the Equator and then to the North Pole.
- Step 4: Compare it to a country you always thought was "huge." It’ll change your worldview in about five minutes.