What Is The Actual Size Of Greenland

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Interactive map tool shows the true size of the world's countries

By Inga Ting

Updated September xi, 2015 — xi.02pm

A fascinating interactive map shows how dissimilar countries really compare in size – a problem that has for centuries stumped cartographers trying to show the spherical Earth on a flat piece of paper.

thetruesize.com aims to demonstrate just how much the Mercator projection, the virtually common way cartographers transform the world into a 2-dimensional map, distorts the size of certain countries and, as a issue, the way we think near the earth.

Planisphere made by Rumold Mercator in 1587. Rumold was the son of Gerardus Mercator, who invented the Mercator projection. — Planisphere fabricated by Rumold Mercator in 1587. Rumold was the son of Gerardus Mercator, who invented the Mercator projection. Credit:Wikimedia Commons

"1 of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (Us, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent)," write thetruesize.com creators James Talmage and Damon Maneice.

Deceptively big: Nine countries (including three superpowers) superimposed over Africa. Credit:truesize.com

"On the Mercator projection Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Greenland is 2 million square kilometres and Africa is thirty one thousand thousand square kilometres, well-nigh 14 and a half times larger."

The tool allows users to search for a country then move it effectually the map. Its size adjusts as information technology moves closer to, or further away from, the poles.

Map nerds will lose countless hours selecting countries to battle it out in the size stakes. These screenshots demonstrate the kind of fun you lot can have with Antarctica.

Antarctica appears gigantic in the Mercator projection. Credit:truesize.com

The continent gets smaller as it moves towards the equator. Credit:truesize.com

Turns out Antarctica is smaller than South America. Credit:truesize.com

Other strangely gratifying activities include trying to fit as many countries as possible into the South American and African continents. As you can encounter in the first image to a higher place, I managed to fit nine countries into Africa. (Geography nerds will be able to gauge from the outlines which countries they are. Anybody else will find the respond at the end of this article.)

Cartographers have devised numerous ways of projecting the Earth onto a two-dimensional map. Every project has its weaknesses and the distortions inherent in the various historical projections ofttimes betrayed, deliberately or otherwise, the bias of their creators. A map is, later on all, a way of looking at the globe.

The medieval maps of Europe, for example, incorporated religious ideas, depicting Jerusalem at the heart and orienting the whole map to the East (where the sun rises and the lost Garden of Eden was idea to lie).

By dissimilarity, Arab maps past Muslim scholars such every bit Al-Idrisi avant-garde early on Greek practices beginning developed by Ptolemy in his book Geography¸ written about 150 AD. Ptolemy's maps were the first to apply longitudinal and latitudinal lines.

Colton's 1852 map of the world uses the Mercator projection, cutting off the highly distorted poles. Printed for J & H Miller, Columbus, Ohio. — Colton's 1852 map of the world uses the Mercator projection, cut off the highly distorted poles. Printed for J & H Miller, Columbus, Ohio. Credit:Wikimedia Commons

The Mercator projection, developed in the 16th century past Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator, flattens the globe by straightening the meridians (the imaginary lines encircling the globe and passing through both poles) and parallels (which run perpendicular to the meridians).

This was bang-up for navigation simply not then useful for representing size and distance because the scale increases from the equator and becomes infinite at the poles.

This explains why Antarctica is so enormous and Africa so insufficiently modest in online maps such equally Google and Bing, which use the Mercator project. In fact, Africa (30 meg foursquare kilometres) is more than twice the size of Antarctica (fourteen one thousand thousand square kilometres).

The widespread apply of the Mercator projection has been fiercely criticised as a sign of Euro-centric bias. In this project, the northern European countries appear far larger and more dominant than the countries in the southward. To rectify the problem, German historian Arno Peters developed the Galls-Peters projection, which distorts countries' shape just accurately shows their size. Still, information technology was never widely used. (Compare the Mercator and Galls-Peters projections using this splendid map 'slider' past The Economist.)

Talmage and Maneice's interactive map stands in this tradition.

"It was inspired by an episode of The West Fly and an infographic past Kai Krause [institute here] entitled "The True Size of Africa"," they write on thetruesize.com.

"We promise teachers will utilise information technology to show their students just how big the world actually is."

* The nine countries are Mongolia (pink), Ukraine (red), the Us (turquoise), Sweden (lite blueish), the UK (blue), India (xanthous), Norway (majestic), Finland (greenish) and China (orange).