Some Land Masses Have More to Mass than Others

In a recent post, I showed a map that scales countries relative to their populations. It showed (of course) that Russia and Canada are pretty dang small, compared to how much territory they cover.

But I didn't mention that the Mercator projection, the version of the world we usually see, is also really distorted when it comes to Russia (and Canada and Greenland) and the Northern Hemisphere in general. And particularly that downplays the massive size of Africa.

Jason Kottke today posted several graphics and a video that visualize those distortions.

First is this animated gif by Neil Kaye dramatizes the reduction needed of those inflated countries. The animation gives this comparative result:



Kottke also reminded me of one of his posts from 2016, which showed these three particular comparison maps:






The blue land mass is Greenland, which is smaller than India, though you would never know it from the Mercator projection.

Looking at some of the places, I see that Alaska is about as large as Libya, when Mercator makes it look as though it's as large as all of West Africa. The Lower 48/Australia comparison shows that Australia is basically the same size as the Lower 48, minus New York and New England.

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I have discussed the Mercator projection in the past... but every time I'm reminded, it hits me almost like it's the first time.