Country Size Comparison (True Size of Landmasses)

Why Maps Distort Country Sizes (Mercator Projection)

Virtually every classroom wall map and digital web map (including Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, and Apple Maps) relies upon the Mercator projection (specifically Web Mercator, EPSG:3857). Created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, this projection was designed exclusively for 16th-century nautical navigation.

Mercator's breakthrough was preserving angles and shapes (conformality): any straight line drawn across a Mercator chart represents a line of constant compass bearing (a rhumb line). If a captain sails with a compass held at 45 degrees, the ship tracks in a straight line on the map.

However, to preserve local shapes and angles on a flat sheet, Mercator had to stretch the lines of latitude farther and farther apart as they approach the poles. This creates catastrophic areal distortion: landmasses located near the poles (such as Greenland, Canada, Russia, and Scandinavia) are artificially magnified by hundreds of percent, while equatorial nations (across Africa, South America, and South Asia) are drastically minimized.

How to See Map Distortion (Tissot Circles)

In 1859, French mathematician Nicolas Auguste Tissot proved that any 2D map projection of a sphere inevitably distorts at least one geometric property: area, shape, distance, or direction.

Using Tissot's Indicatrix, cartographers place tiny identical circles of equal radius across a globe and observe how they deform when projected:

Maps That Show True Country Size

To counteract the geopolitical bias of Mercator maps—which historically inflated European and North American colonial powers relative to developing equatorial nations—geodesists developed equal-area projections:

• Gall-Peters Projection (1973): A cylindrical equal-area projection that shows all landmasses in accurate relative proportions. However, it severely elongates equatorial Africa and South America vertically while flattening polar regions horizontally, drawing criticism for severe shape distortion.
• Mollweide & Goode Homolosine: Pseudocylindrical projections that curve meridians into ellipses (or interrupted “orange-peel” lobes) to preserve both true area and pleasing continental contours.
• Equal Earth Projection (2018): Created by Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny, Equal Earth preserves exact relative land areas while delivering natural, visually balanced continental shapes without the severe elongation of Gall-Peters.

How Much Does Mercator Enlarge a Country? The Formula

On a standard Mercator projection, linear scale stretches as the secant of latitude (k = \sec\phi = 1/\cos\phi). Because this stretch occurs equally in both the east-west and north-south directions, the areal magnification factor K_area scales as the square of the secant:

True Country Size vs. Size on a Mercator Map (Table)

Reference this benchmark table showing true surface areas versus apparent visual inflation on standard Web Mercator maps:

What Counts as Country Area: Comparison Limitations

When comparing true country sizes across international boundaries, cartographers must account for three statistical variables:

• Land Area vs. Total Area: Official statistics distinguish between dry land area and total area (which includes inland freshwater lakes, rivers, and coastal inlets). Canada ranks 2nd in total area (9.98M km²) due to holding over 60% of all natural lakes on Earth (891,000 km² of water), but ranks 4th behind the United States and China in pure dry land area.
• Territorial Waters & EEZ: Sovereign land comparisons exclude territorial seas (12 nautical miles) and Exclusive Economic Zones (200 nautical miles). If EEZs were counted, island nations like French Polynesia or Kiribati would rank among the largest territories on Earth.
• Dispersed Sovereign Exclaves: Nations with fragmented overseas territories (such as France's French Guiana, or the US State of Alaska and Pacific territories) appear disjointed when dragged across interactive map comparison canvases.