Astonishing Ways Modern Maps Are Misleading You

A world away

Although the world map is a familiar sight on classroom walls and in atlases, you might be surprised to learn that it’s not an accurate representation of the Earth. In fact, in terms of country and continent size, it’s totally wrong. The reason is a 16th-century projection created to help sailors navigate the world, which – for hundreds of years – became the world’s most widely used map.

Read on to discover why much of what you learned about world maps is wrong…

Mercator Projection

If we want to understand why world maps have long been based on inaccurate assumptions, we need to look at the Mercator Projection. Dating to 1569, it was created by renowned Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator (pictured) as a tool for sailors.

By transforming the globe into a rectangle, he preserved angles – allowing accurate compass readings for navigation. But this had the effect of dramatically distorting land sizes, especially at the poles.

Mercator map

Mercator knew that representing the spherical Earth on a flat map would result in landmass distortions. But his work was all about helping sailors to navigate, not representing the correct shape or size of continents.

He didn’t know that his projection would become standard in atlases and wall maps for centuries – even as more geographical discoveries were made. The image shows a vintage map based upon Mercator’s 16th-century mathematical calculations.

Mercator distortion

This image offers a simple way to understand one of the main effects of the Mercator distortion. Essentially, land masses are stretched at the poles and squeezed at the equator. As you can see, this gives the impression that Europe is closer to the equator than it is in reality.

Let’s take a look at some more specific examples, which highlight how Mercator’s projection has led to inaccurate assumptions about the size of the world’s landmasses.

Antarctica isn't as big as it appears

As the Arctic region and Antarctica are the regions farthest away from the equator, on Mercator maps, they appear disproportionately large.

Like this example shows, the Antarctic appears to be easily the largest continent – a snowy mass which spans the entire southern hemisphere. In fact, it’s just 5.5 million square miles, making it only the fifth largest continent (about the size of South America).

Arctic islands are smaller than they look

This also affects how we perceive Greenland and the Arctic islands. For example, Canada’s Ellesmere Island (indicated on the map, not to scale) is often shown as roughly the size of Britain or Australia.

In reality, while the island is the 10th largest in the world, measuring 75,767 square miles, it’s about 39 times smaller than Australia.

Greenland is smaller than Australia

Similarly, Greenland is shown on Mercator maps as a far larger territory than it is in reality. Again, using Australia for comparison, the image highlights the true size of Greenland.

While Greenland is the world's largest island, at 836,000 square miles, it’s less than one-third the size of Australia – the smallest continent – which extends across three million square miles.

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Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland

But despite its true size, distortions created by Mercator’s projection often show Greenland as the same size as the whole of Africa – the world’s second-largest continent. This comparison is probably the starkest example of why the world maps we grew up with are misleading.

In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland, which has a landmass roughly comparable to Algeria or the Democratic Republic of Congo. The image shows Greenland and Africa as they appear on the same Google map. And it doesn't stop there.

Madagascar is twice the size of the UK

While many world maps indicate that these diverse countries are the same size, again, the distortion created by the Mercator projection gives a totally false impression – as shown on this Google Maps image. In fact, Madagascar is about 2.4 times larger than the UK.

The island in the Indian Ocean extends across 226,660 square miles, while its European counterpart covers just 93,410 square miles.

Mexico is bigger than Alaska

There are even examples from within regions. The image shows a map of North America, which suggests Alaska is far bigger than Mexico – when the opposite is true.

While the difference may not be as exaggerated as some of the other comparisons you'll see here, it is still significant. At approximately 761,610 square miles, Mexico is around 1.3 times the size of Alaska, at 586,000 square miles.

Three USAs fit into Africa

Another great example of the distortion, Mercator maps often suggest America and Africa are about the same size. The image shows the true size comparison, with roughly three USAs easily fitting into Africa’s landmass.

As well as being misleading, it highlights one of the criticisms of the model – suggestions of a ‘Eurocentric’ bias, which makes certain countries and regions appear dominant over those located closer to the equator. Let’s take a look at a couple more examples with some true side-by-side size comparisons.

India is 3 times bigger than Scandinavia

One of the more extreme illustrations of the Mercator effect and perceived biases can be seen with representations of India and Scandinavia. With parts of the Scandinavian region lying within the Arctic Circle, the distortion is quite extreme.

Maps often indicate that Scandinavia (on the left in the image) is the larger landmass, when India (on the right) is actually three times bigger. India – the world’s seventh largest country – also has a larger population than all of Europe combined.

South America is 3 times bigger than Europe

Mercator maps often show these regions as the same size, while – in reality – South America (on the right) is nearly three times the size of Europe (on the left). Again, this is due to Europe being stretched by its northern position and the compression of South America by the equatorial distortion.

South America extends across 6.8 million square miles, while Europe (excluding European Russia) spans 2.3 million square miles.

Equator distortion

A further effect of the Mercator distortion is that people place the equator lower on the map. As you can see, it cuts through the middle of Africa, northern South America, and Southeast Asia.

It’s often believed that Europe is closer to the equator than North America. But London is at about the same latitude as Calgary, while Paris and Berlin are further north than Montreal.

Gall–Peters Projection

So, are there any representations which show continents and regions as they really are? There are in fact several examples of maps which try to represent Earth more accurately. One of the best-known is the Gall–Peters Projection (pictured).

Created by James Gall in 1855 and published by Arno Peters in 1974, it is an equal-area map projection. But while it accurately depicts the relative sizes of landmasses and oceans, countries still appear distorted.

Winkel Tripel

Developed in 1921 by Oswald Winkel, this projection aims to minimize distortions in area, shape, and distance. In fact, ‘tripel’ means ‘combination of three elements’ in German – hence its inclusion in the name.

Winkel’s effort was not seen as particularly revolutionary in its day. However, in 1998, the National Geographic Society adopted the Winkel Tripel as its standard for maps, igniting interest in the projection.

Dymaxion map

Also called the Fuller Projection, the somewhat bizarre looking Dymaxion map shows the world as a single island in one ocean. Created in 1943 by Buckminster Fuller, it aimed to preserve the dimensions of the Earth and the relative sizes and shapes of countries.

In developing the map, Fuller converted the globe into a 20-sided shape – an icosahedron – then unfolded it into a flat map. Among other things, the map attempted to avoid the accusations of cultural bias which have plagued Mercator and other world map projections.

AuthaGraph

Developed by Japanese architect Hajime Narukawa in 1999, the AuthaGraph is often cited as the most accurate. It is an approximate equal-area projection which minimizes the kinds of distortions found in other world maps.

The process of creating the AuthaGraph was quite complex. Essentially, it involved dividing the Earth's spherical surface into 96 equal-area triangular regions, transferring it to a three-dimensional tetrahedron and then unfolding it into a rectangle.

Google Maps

Given that it has around one billion users a month, it’s worth looking at the model used by Google Maps. While Google Earth and ‘Globe View’ use a 3D model of the Earth, browser-based maps rely on the Web Mercator Projection.

This lets us easily zoom and pan. However, as some of our images have shown, it retains the land size distortions near the poles, with Greenland larger than it really is and Africa appearing smaller – with Antarctica often showing as a white mass along the bottom of the map.

Mercator’s legacy

Interestingly, the reason that Google Maps uses a variation of the Mercator model is the very reason the projection was created in 1569 – it preserves angles, making directional navigation easier.

This shows just why Gerardus Mercator’s ground-breaking projection (pictured) has endured for hundreds of years. Only now it’s to help us find a restaurant in an unfamiliar neighborhood, rather than to circumnavigate the world on the high seas.

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Now check out historic maps showing how America developed