What Is The Size Of South America In Comparison To The Other Continents?

Is Texas really bigger than Poland? Does Russia stretch further east to west than Africa does north to south? And how big a chunk of Europe would the U.S. cover? If you're losing sleep over questions similar these, y'all'll detect relief at TheTrueSize.com, a web tool designed to provide answers about the relative sizes of countries (and U.Due south. states).

Created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice, the application was inspired by an episode of The Westward Wing, in which a delegation of the (fictional) Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality (OCSE) asks the White House to get public schools to employ world maps that apply the Peters project rather than the traditional Mercator project.

Cartographers for Social Equality – The West Wing www.youtube.com

Why? On a Mercator map, countries in further north (and south) are shown larger than they are relative to countries closer to the equator. In so doing, one of the OCSE scientists explains, "the Mercator project has fostered European imperialist attitudes for centuries and created an indigenous bias against the Third Globe," says i OCSE scientist.

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Withal, her colleagues bespeak out that this was non Mercator's original intent: "(He) designed (the Mercator projection) every bit a navigational tool for European sailors (…) The map enlarges areas at the poles to create straight lines of constant begetting or geographic direction."

While those straight lines make information technology easy for sailors to follow directions across oceans, world maps in the Mercator projection distort the relative size of the earth's land masses — and increasingly so closer to the poles.

The classic case, also used in The West Wing scene, is Greenland: on a Mercator world map, it appears roughly the same size as Africa. In fact, the continent is fourteen times larger than the island.
Other examples: on a Mercator map, Europe seems larger than South America; in fact, S America is almost double the size of Europe.
And, Alaska appears 3 times equally large as United mexican states, but United mexican states is slightly larger than America's northernmost state.

However, the Peters projection deviates substantially from what many people have come to expect a globe map should look like. Or, as i of the presidential aides in The Due west Wing said, when presented with an instance, "What the hell is that?"

This app allows size comparison while fugitive the cartographic Fremdkörper that the Peters projection nonetheless is. "We hope teachers will use it to show their students just how big the earth actually is," say Talmage and Macniece.

TheTrueSize.com is great fun: motion equatorial countries north and see how getting closer to the pole distorts them, as if in a house of mirrors at the carnival. Plonk countries from different latitudes side by side to each other and run into how they're a lot more different in size than you idea. Or a lot less. Run into countries shrink as you lot elevate them from their positions high up north (or deep down south) closer to the equator.

Aye, Greenland is huge. But non this huge. Considering it'southward so close to the Due north Pole, the Mercator projection stretches the Danish-controlled island out beyond all proportion. That'due south why it looks every bit big as Africa and a lot bigger than the Autonomous Congo-brazzaville.

Epitome: thetruesize.com

Greenland and Africa, Mercator style

Drag the icy island away from its Arctic domicile toward the deepest jungles of Africa, and its form shifts and its area shrinks. Greenland has an expanse of 836,000 square miles (two.16 million km2), which makes it a bit smaller than the DR Congo, at 857,000 sq. mi (2.22 million km2).

Paradigm: thetruesize.com

Congo is bigger than Greenland

The symbolism of space and the prejudice of history puts the United Kingdom on top, and its former colony Tanzania style down at the bottom of this map. In that location doesn't seem to be that much of a size divergence betwixt both countries.

Image: thetruesize.com

UK trumps Tanzania

Look at that: the entire U.One thousand. fits easily into Tanzania, with a lot of room to spare. The Shetland Islands, Scotland'south northernmost archipelago, is at a safe distance from the Rwandan border, and Dover is yet a day's drive away from Dar es Salaam, on the coast.

Image: thetruesize.com

Tanzania swallows the United kingdom

At half dozen.six 1000000 sq. mi (17 million km2), Russia is the world's largest country. Simply Mercator makes it await larger than it is. Drag and driblet it nigh the equator, and yous see how truly huge Africa is: at 11.73 million sq. mi (xxx.37 million km2), information technology is almost twice the size of Russian federation.

Image: boredpanda.com

Russia on top

British imperialist Cecil Rhodes dreamed of a cord of colonies (and a railway line) stretching "from Cape to Cairo." He could have just gone to TheTrueSize, turned Russian federation on its caput and dragged it over Africa: Greatcoat Town is somewhere in the Russian Caucasus, while the easternmost signal of Siberia plunges into the Mediterranean, well, north of Cairo.

Image: thetruesize.com

Russian federation on its head

Texas is bigger than Poland. Yous could driblet it over the map of Eastern Europe and have it encompass the entirety of Poland, and there'd be plenty of Texas left to surround information technology.

Image: thetruesize.com

Poland, TX

Talking about huge: stick the Lower 48 onto Europe, and yous immediately see how both compare for size. If Seattle would exist in the west of Republic of ireland, Istanbul would still be in the aforementioned land — in southern Texas. Los Angeles would be on the Franco-Spanish border and Chicago just north of Moscow. New York? Deepest Siberia. Absolutely, it sometimes does feel similar that.

Image: thetruesize.com

Trying Europe on for size

The U.S. has a very recognisable cartographic persona, simply here'south what that funhouse mirror does to it when you lot move it northward. It inflates to a grotesque parody of its former shape (just it does rival Canada for size). Not and then much deviation towards the equator, except that information technology shrinks. And we can't take that!

Image: boredpanda.com

Inflated and deflated states of America

Here are the world's ten largest countries, all dragged to neutral territory – on the equator – for better size comparing. Suddenly, those size differences don't seem so great any more.

Image: boredpanda.com

X largest countries

Hither's what would happen if you placed Germany in the Midwest: Milwaukee would double every bit Flensburg, Nashville could be a Midwestern Munich, St. Louis would be Cologne and Fort Wayne could pretend it was Berlin. Together, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky encompass 135,000 sq. mi, near exactly as much as Deutschland, at just under 138,000 sq. mi.

Epitome: thetruesize.com

Germany in the Midwest

Images taken from The True Size and hither from Bored Panda.

Strange Maps #953

Got a foreign map? Let me know at strangemaps@gmail.com.

What Is The Size Of South America In Comparison To The Other Continents?,

Source: https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/compare-true-size-of-countries/

Posted by: carrollboremat.blogspot.com