The true size of Africa
For centuries, the maps used to understand the world have distorted Africa’s size compared to most northerly nations.
www.reuters.com
The true size of Africa
For centuries, the maps used to understand the world have distorted Africa’s size compared to most northerly nations.
www.reuters.com
The true size of Africa
For centuries, the maps used to understand the world have distorted Africa’s size compared to most northerly nations.
The Mercator map, first created in the 16th century, has long been the standard map used for navigation and education, but it stretches land masses farther from the equator. For example, Greenland often appears as big as Africa on a Mercator map, when in reality Africa is about 14 times larger.
Many other northern nations look comparable in size to the continent of Africa when they are in fact smaller by land area.
Africa is about three times larger than Canada and more than one and a half the size of Russia, yet the Mercator projection has long made students think those countries are comparable in size — or even larger — than Africa.
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