L'Amérique. L'Asie. The True Size Of ... Afrique. Your World Map is Hiding Something. Take a look at a map of the world. If it looks like this one, as most do, you will see that Alaska appears larger than Mexico and that Greenland looks about the same size as Africa. In reality, Mexico is larger than Alaska and Africa is about 14x the size of Greenland. The maps below show how their true sizes compare (images from The True Size Of). The “normal” world map is actually very strange Because the world is a sphere, it is impossible to draw it on a flat surface without distorting it in some way. These distortions are known as map projections, the mathematical rules for how to stretch each point on the Earth’s surface onto a 2-dimensional plane. This particular map uses the Mercator projection, the most popular map projection today and almost certainly the one you are most familiar with.
In addition to the distorted sizes mentioned above, the Mercator projection has several other odd features. If you haven’t done so already… Can a map be racist? Clearly the answer is no. More Related. Eight ways of projecting the world. Pistes de correction pour les EDD de géographie.