Sunday, October 12, 2025

Flattening Earth: Why Your Map is Lying

That's an excellent question that highlights a common misconception due to map projections. **Africa is vastly larger than Greenland.** Here are the facts: * **Area of Africa:** Approximately 30.37 million square kilometers (11.7 million square miles) * **Area of Greenland:** Approximately 2.166 million square kilometers (836,000 square miles) **To put it in perspective:** You could fit Greenland into Africa **about 14 times**. Check out the tool: true-size.com

Posted by maktub27 at 11:46 AM | 13 COMMENTS | permalink

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### Why the Confusion?

The reason most people get this wrong is the **Mercator Projection**, the map style most of us grew up with.

To represent the spherical Earth on a flat map, this projection stretches landmasses near the poles, making them appear much larger than they are relative to land near the equator.

* **Greenland** is close to the North Pole, so it gets extremely stretched. * **Africa** straddles the equator, so its size is represented much more accurately on a Mercator map.

On a globe, the true size relationship is immediately obvious.

Comments

The map isn't "lying". Historically, the Mercator projection has had pragmatic uses when it comes to navigation and mapping. While I agree with the sentiment of trying to educate people about how it can be misleading to people aren't mathematically inclined and never thought about it before, the headline of this article is dumb clickbait that makes people dumber.

#1 | Posted by sentinel at 2025-10-12 12:20 PM

They used to have this thing called a "globe" in classrooms that showed a pretty accurate representation of the size of the various nations.

Yeah, you can talk about how the Mercator Projection was useful when people traveled the seas by sail.

But it's because America fancies itself big, that we have a map with a big America on it. No other reason.

#2 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-10-12 12:23 PM

I keep seeing this lately. By lately, the last year or so.

My question is, who cares? How many people are actually interested in or needs to know the relative sizes of Greenland to Africa?

Or is this some "everything is racist" issue?

#3 | Posted by jpw at 2025-10-12 01:07 PM

"Or is this some "everything is racist" issue?"
#3 | Posted by jpw

Probably being pushed by people who want you to dismiss actual racist issues by priming you to dismiss them as some nonsense "everything is racist" issue.

A new poster comes here, creates an account, this is their only post and only comment.
Whaddaya think, idealistic lib, or MAGA provocateur?

#4 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-10-12 01:12 PM


But it's because America fancies itself big, that we have a map with a big America on it. No other reason.
#2 | POSTED BY SNOOFY

Yeah no nation in the history of man has ever had a large map of its self in its nations classrooms.


Yeah, you can talk about how the Mercator Projection was useful when people traveled the seas by sail.

What about online mapping services like Google Maps and OpenStreetMap that use Mercator projection for the same reasons.

#5 | Posted by oneironaut at 2025-10-12 01:17 PM


A new poster comes here, creates an account, this is their only post and only comment.
Whaddaya think, idealistic lib, or MAGA provocateur?
#4 | POSTED BY SNOOFY

I think its marketing. Did you check out true-size.com? I didn't but ... feel free to be the canary.

#6 | Posted by oneironaut at 2025-10-12 01:19 PM

Probably being pushed by people who want you to dismiss actual racist issues by priming you to dismiss them as some nonsense "everything is racist" issue.

You seem to be mistaking me for someone as easily lead as yourself.

#7 | Posted by jpw at 2025-10-12 01:32 PM

You're the one who thought Virtue Signaling was only something a leftist could do.

As you prance around your house in your pajamas with your ear protection and your gun.

#8 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-10-12 01:34 PM

Cool strawman.

Creepy fantasy.

Try harder.

#9 | Posted by jpw at 2025-10-12 01:37 PM

Hey pretty pants,
You asked why this was a thread.
I told you.
You pouted.

Go breastfeed, you're getting grumpy.

#10 | Posted by snoofy at 2025-10-12 01:40 PM

No, you made some stupid s^%* up that it's actually racists trying to flood the zone so that people don't pay attention to racism.

Nice try at declaring a victory nearly as devoid of reasoning and facts as a BillJohnson thread.

#11 | Posted by jpw at 2025-10-12 01:42 PM

There absolutely must be some distortion in a 2D map.

Map distortions have been used for political and military purposes since humans started making maps.

Both of these statements are true.

#12 | Posted by horstngraben at 2025-10-12 01:51 PM

Didn't we just have this conversation last month? Perhaps it is a do-over as it seems to be a bit more civil.
By more civil no chimps throwing feces at the zoo goers. (yet)

#13 | Posted by mattm at 2025-10-13 06:12 PM

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