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After Seeing These 30 Maps You’ll Never Look At The World The Same
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The reason why certain countries look bigger or smaller than others is that of something called the Mercator Projection. Putting a 3D planet on a two-dimensional world map was something of a challenge for early cartographers, and so a Flemish geographer and cartographer named Gerardus Mercator came up with a solution for the most accurate world map. In 1569 he designed an atlas that could be accurately used for navigation purposes, but the downside was that his system distorted the size of objects depending on their position relative to the equator. Because of this, landmasses like Antarctica and Greenland appeared much bigger than they actually are. Though there are around 40 types of map projections, from conical to polyhedral and retroazimuthal depicting the true size maps, this one is still used the most because of its convenience and simplicity. And none of these projections can be titled 'the real world map,' just because they all depict the same Earth through a different lens.
To show how incorrect our understanding of countries by size is, a website called thetruesize.com lets you move landmasses into different locations. Bored Panda has played a bit on world maps with countries, provided by this site, and this is what we found.
This post may include affiliate links.
If Romania Was An Island In The Arctic Ocean
I don't get why the map was done so inaccuratelly? can somone explain?
Australia Is Way Bigger Than You May Think - It Covers Almost The Whole Of Europe
Indonesia Would Spread Almost Across The Whole Of Russia
Greenland Is Not So Big When Compared To USA And Brazil
When You Move Canada To South America
Nope. The width of South America at its widest point is 2,705 miles (4,353 km), The width of Canada at its widest point is 5,780 miles (9,306 km).
They changed the angle of the position.
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I wonder how dumb it's possible to be. People, the images do not show actual size of the countries or even relative scale, that's the point here. The images are designed to show how inaccurate the mercator projection is. In other words, following the scales used in the mercator projection this is what Canada would look like on map were it in South America
I wonder the same thing, the tool they are using to show the inaccuracies in the projections is not accurate in itself. If Canada and South America were shown on the same spot of the map they would be distorted by the same amount and Canada would still appear bigger. So in simpler terms this map *doesn't* correctly show what Canada would like on the map were it in South America as they have made errors when scaling.
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It's not about how big the countries are bits about how they would be drawn on the map if you change the location. The actual size doesn't change.
This excellent post only explain with very nice and interesting tools the distorted representation of the world we are used to see. I really cant understand why people can doubt about a fact, even if it has just been explained above, even when someone bothered to develop a site that lets you experience it. Why don’t they just google the surface of the countries? It would avoid them to let us know how limited their reasoning skills are. Very nice post! Good work!
FOR INSTANCE, Go to GOOGLE EARTH Here https://earth.google.com/web/@55.27343384,-79.31232171,-1514.55079955a,13235866.6003418d,35y,2.32795367h,0t,0r and you will see Not Only the SIZE of Greenland is Different, but ALSO the Angle We Perceive it to Be on the Current Distorted Map, Get it?
Canada is the 2nd biggest country in the world after Russia based on size in square miles. Russia is by far the biggest country in the world.
Canada is massive and it's still the second largest country in the world behind only Russia.
South America is less than half the width of Canada, how does Canada go from 5700 miles to 2700?? where did those missing 3000 miles go? this is so bogus
This is all bogus, it''s a ball , slide it anywhere it will be the same size no change, so what is this bs?
As someone has already mentioned, Canada has been placed on an angle - so that it aligns more closely with the shape of Brazil
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If Canada was the smaller size then air travel time and cost of travel would not be as high as it is now.
How would Canada be smaller in size? It's still the same size
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Have you read the article at all before spouting the same comment on so many photos? It doesn't appear so as you have failed to grasp the logic of what is being discussed.
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China Placed On Top Of Russia
Japan Can Stretch Almost Across Canada
It all has to do with putting a round object onto a flat, rectangular presentation. Locations near the poles get stretched and distorted, appearing much larger. The point of the map is that IF Japan was in that particular geographic location (closer to the North Pole), it would look much larger when transcribed onto a flat map.
Antarctica Is Not So Much Larger Than Brazil
This Is How India Changes As You Move It North
Wholly Molley! No wonder I get so many customer service agents in India.... that is one HUGE country.
Canada Moved Down Onto The US Reveals That Both Countries Are Pretty Much The Same Size
but 2/3rds of Canada is uninhabitable because it's in the f-ing article circle.
How This All Works
You should move this to the top for the dimwits. This is a great series of posts. Thanks for sharing - fun stuff :D
USA Compared To Europe
If Poland Was An Island In The Norwegian Sea
The US Could Easily Cover The Whole Of Canada But It Becomes Much Smaller When It's Moved South
When You Move Mexico Onto Greenland Its Size Increases Dramatically
If Lithuania Was An Island In The Barents Sea And Artic Ocean
Moving UK North And South Reveals How It Actually Compares To Other Countries
Democratic Republic Of The Congo When You Move It North
#27 Tiny Iceland Compared To New York
Let Me Just Make This Easy; The Issue Is Peters (accurate) Vs Mercator (inaccurate).
"Peters" (actually Gall-Peters, as Gall came up with the projection long before) is no truer than Mercator overall. The key phrase here is area: Gall-Peters is designed to preserve relative areas, while Mercator preserves direction and shape. "True representation of land area" and "Incorrect/false representation of land area" are not entirely false statements, but they are too easily read as "Gall-Peters good, Mercator bad!" Which is simply not the case. But despite the famous West Wing scene, in fact there are many better projections than Gall-Peters for showing the whole world — and they have been and continue to be in use in most major publications related to maps and geography for many, many years. There's no single most popular projection, but Mollweide, Winkel Tripel, and perhaps Robinson remain some of the most common. In short: each projection has its own uses, and its own shortcomings. Mercator was never meant to be the only projection ever used.
Texas Moved On Top Of Alaska Shows That They're Almost The Same Size
By almost the same size do you really mean less than half as big as Alaska?
You Cannot Make Legitimate Size Comparison Unless You Are Doing So On An Equal Area Map
Whoever made this originally, was for sure, a bored panda.
This is widely known phenomenon: the problem with our world maps is that we try to map a round object on a flat surface. As far as I know, there is no mathematical method to map it 1:1. Because of this setup, our view on countries on world maps are distorted. Also nice fact: depending on where you buy your map, it's different everywhere, as each country places itself in the middle of the map
Fun & true fact : Canada don't place himself in the center on the map, we actually put the Atlantic Ocean/Europe in the center (like #12; #14). This way we don't hurt anyone.
In America we put ourselves in the middle because we are assholes
In Brazil Europe and Africa is in the center.
Very true. And not only that, this frame of reference greatly affects global politics. And since you mentioned, People's Republic of China does not convey the meaning in Chinese at all - it practically means Flowery Center of the World.
China = zhong guo = middle country/kingdom. No flowers, mate, but Mei Guo for the USA does mean, beautiful country/kingdom :)
Jason, ”華” in 中華人民共和国(people's republic of China) also means 'flower' or 'flowery'.
excellent Panda..
You CAN map it 1:1 quite easily, if you allow the map to be other shapes than a rectangle =).
Only one country in the world places itself in the middle of the map. Apparently you live in there.
Never seen a globe? Pictures of Earth from space?
False and false. 1) There is one way to map the globe 1:1, it's on a globe! 2) I have travelled and studied in several countries and never seen anyone place themselves at the center of the map, although I am sure the odd country does it.
you didn't read my comment carefully 1) " is that we try to map a round object on a flat surface" FLAT surface, I wasn't talking about globes :) and we have a 2D maps here 2) well how do you explain this american world map then? asea-57934...95d0e9.jpg
I lived in Australia. They most certainly don't put North America in the middle of their maps lol
Thanks for that info! I enjoyed your fun-facts as much as I enjoyed these maps.
I'm amazed at how ignorant people in the comments are. :( sorry
One thing that never amazes me is the ignorance of people. :)
Too bad the countries of the African continent are so underrepresented in the compared photo's. As far as I know they represent a very big part of the world in actual size!
EXACLTY my thought. Interesting that it's the only land mass not shown.
It is a funny and tragic thing at the same time that SO many people don't understand how the geographic projection works. This is elementary school knowledge people, at least where I come from - in fifth grade when children start learning geography they are taught the basics first - like shape of the Earth, the map projections, rotation and revolution of the Earth and it's consequences, etc...
Thank you Mr Mercator for giving generations a completely wrong view of the world.
And Singapore is still too small to be seen in any of them
All maps have a distortion of some kind.
I don't fully understand this. Can the publisher please explain? I get how California is about the the same size as the UK but the rest are puzzling.
Map distortions are caused by trying to project features on a sphere onto a flat surface. Globes are better for size comparisons between countries and/or continents. About the best map to view earth's features with little distorionon a flat surface is a Bucky Fuller dymaxion map.
You don't get it because the article writer has no idea of the concept she's trying to explain. Re read John Ashley's comment.
If you have a sphere made of rubber and you draw something on it, but all around it; then you want to cut it and create a 2D rubbery sheet out of the same material - the drawing that was drawn on top and bottom of that sphere will have to be stretched to fit the square frame whilst the central part will remain the same hence the countries, shapes, distances on maps are the most accurate around the equator. If you look up a map of some country on a world map and say a map of Europe it will have different shape because maps that show smaller areas are more accurate because you don't have the stretching thing done.
I don't get it. In #28 (Alaska next to the 48 Contiguous States) Alaska (moved South) looks like half (of 48 Contiguous States) and in #29 Texas (moved North) alone looks as the whole Alaska? It shouldn't scale with the same percentage if you move/compare to the North or South of it's original position?
Sigh .. Read about the Merc projection. But I will explain, Texas is closer to the equator so it looks smaller than it should compared to other states. So don't imagine the USA as havin'the same scale.
I think you failed to properly explain how you've moved countries around but that they don't actually appear that way in real life (like the Indonesia on Russia map.) I can see a lot of people coming to this page, not reading the intro paragraph, and just looking at the maps and thinking "Wow, Romania's huge!" You really need to make sure that people understand what they're looking at, that intro paragraph does not make it clear for most people that these are not actual sizes. Trust me, my 8th grade students would absolutely NOT read that intro and just look at the maps and take them as fact.
Thank's for this article Very interesting
Me parece barabte raro, ya que la actuak tecnología satelital permitiría hacer una buena escala geográfica. Sin necesidad de usar ese método de adaptación.
This is the only map you need to know about :) Flat_earth-1.png
Globes have accurate proportionality. But it is difficult to fold one and store it. Although there are some one may deflate.
Perhaps too many examples of the very same concept. The Mercator projection distorts sizes. That's all.
BORING PANDA IS STUPID,LIKE IT WAS SELLING OF ALASKA FOR US RUSSIANS,OR REVOLUTION,BECAUSE FINLAND UKRAINE POLAND,BELARUS KAZAKHSTAN,ETC.,OR 100 YEARS BEFORE.....LIKE THEY DIDNT,BUT EXPLAIN ME PANDA IN KALIFORNIA,THERE IS STILL OLD RUSSIAN MILITARY KAMP..DID YOU HEARD OF THAT MIRACLE??,NOW RUSSIA HAS 17 MILION SQUARE KM AND 11 TIME ZONES,SO IT BIGEST,COUNTRY,WITH STILL ONE OF BEST STATE SEC. ANALITIC, SERVICES,AND ONE OF GREATEST PATRIOTISM AFTER ALL IN RUSSIA NOW LIWES 147 MIL PEOPLE,ONE MAN ON 1000KM2,OR MORE?BIGEST OIL,GAS,WATER,URANIUM ETC.AFTER MONGOLS,KATHOLICS,FALL OF FIRST EMPIRE WITH IVAN THE 4TH,SO CALLED TERIBLE,AND TURKS,OTOMAN EMPIRE,PERSIAN EMPIRE,NAPOLEON,KRIMEAN WAR,WW1.,KOMUNIST REVOLUTION,FALL OF ROMANOVS EMPIRE,STALIN LENIN,USSR,WW2,--HITLER,...CHERCHILL,US,COLD WAR,ETC..RUSSIA ALWAYAS,WON,SO IT WAS THE BIGEST COUNTRY,ONLY WILL RISE,NOT FALL,SERTANLY NOT APART,?OR BECAUSE SOME CASE LIKE CHECNIYA, 33 000 KM2....
You forgot Africa and have massively bigger it is than some countries and continents.
Bottom line: Buy a globe if you want to see how countries really compare, size wise, to one another. Because a flat map distorts the sizes of continents the further they are from the equator.
but, but, but... lands get "higher" on maps if out of equatorial areas... but things on this maps do get "wider", which simply is not true...
what
Fascinating!
Russia is sill the biggest one!
This still won't teach Americans where countries are.
As far as I'm concerned all countries have the same world map.
Just allow that the lower the latitude more accurate the representation. On Mercator an object at 40 degrees is less accurately represented than one at 15 degrees latitude.
As much as I love maps, why not just make a list of countries showing total square kilometers.....
Because countries aren'squares, and width plays a role on how big they appear
if you want to see countries as they are sized exactly relative to each other, buy a globe
Any attempt to project the surface of a sphere onto a rectangle necessarily involves involves distortions. There are hundreds of different projections, but one recent projection unusually preserves both the relative size and shape of countries, which people might find interesting: http://www.authagraph.com/projects/description/【作品解説】記事01/?lang=en
Easy way to learn worldmap.....Great!!
Do not ignore the fact that I actually came on here to read comments !! Lol 👌🏻
They didn't want to touch the misrepresentation of Africa's size. 🤔
👏👏👏
Have you folks ever seen a globe?
#29 "Almost the same size"? We're 2.5x their square mileage..
bzdury
This pictures are still misleading (the other way around compared to "usual" maps). For example, China (10 billion km2) is far from being as big as Russia (17). Here it looks about 80% of its size
who made this crap ?
They forgot to include Alaska with the US, and it is huge!
It's interesting you didn't compare the continent of Africa, (just the Congo), hum?
Hoax? Rank - Country - Area Sq Km 1Russia17,075,200 2Canada9,984,670 3United States of America9,826,630 4China9,596,960 5Brazil8,511,965 6Australia7,686,850 7India3,287,590 8Argentina2,766,890 9Kazakhstan2,717,300 10Algeria2,381,740
If my granny had balls she'd be my grandad...
If my granny had balls she'd be my grandad ...
so your saying Sth Africa is actually the same width as the Nth of Africa, and Sth America is wide as the United States? what a load of B.S
why don't you move countries of South America to the northem of earth? still doesn't work for you?
This is why I prefer to use maps with the "Gall–Peters projection" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall–Peters_projection
i would like to see Sudan, Zaire ,Nigeria or even south Africa put on this scale
Fuck Mercartor!
это наебалово, в России 10 часовых поясов, а в Африке 4 но по этой карте они почти равны. Омерикосы опять хуйню подсунули всем - хавайте.
Nice, Africa is completely left out in these comparisons! :(
india map is depicted wrongly . Remember 7-year jail, Rs 100 crore fine for wrong depiction of India map, Check the link below http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/7-year-jail-Rs-100-crore-fine-for-wrong-depiction-of-India-map/articleshow/52133221.cms
I am not so sure with your facts. How did this becomes a fact though?#curious
This is amazing and so weird to see at the same time.
РОССИЯ САМАЯ ЛУЧШАЯ СТРАНА НА СВЕТЕ! И ВСЕ ОСТАЛЬНЫЕ СТРАНЫ НАМ ЗАВИДУЮТ! 57971f996536f.jpg
Yes but Canada's population is less than the state of California and a lot of their land is uninhabitable.
Low population, yes, uninhabitable land, no. Look up "Inuit" for further clarification.
Maps are too confusing, I barely even understand any of this lol
I dont grt this
Very interesting.
thetruesize.com will automatically project maps
truesize.com will automatically project maps
Interested people out there, there is a much better way of mapping the world, called 'Dymaxion Map' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map), which was developed by Buckminster Fuller. He even considered not having a South nor North on his map as it is equated with 'rich/more developed North' and 'poor/undevelopped South'.
why there is no Taiwan region in Chinese territory?
Because Taiwan is not part of China.
http://www.petersmap.com
I'd like to see the UK placed in East Asia (or next to Japan). Once my British friend said, 'Sometimes British people say Japan is a tiny island country, but in fact the UK is much smaller than Japan.' Is Great Britain (the main island of the UK) bigger than the Korean peninsula?
well to get the most accurate figure... i divide land area (sq mile) of the apparent largest by the smallest... atleast u will see by how many times the largest is bigger than the smallest
Why do they still look regular size on a globe? The earth is round, a globe is round so why are the countries on a globe the way we are used to seeing them printed?
And what is the purpose of this?
I wonder why they did not do Africa. I think people would of been blown out of their mind I'd they saw how big Africa is.
Because Africa is close to the Equator and there is very little distortion going on there during the mapping. So Africa is the most accurate drawn continent on the world map.
This is cool but I don't full understand it... Could someone explain
The problem is there is no completely accurate way to map a round object on a flat map. Think of trying to wrap a soccer ball as a present with flat wrapping paper (or even try it with a small ball and writing paper). You just cannot do it neatly. You end up with lots or folds or wrinkles, or you have to cut the paper into many slices, and you still have overlap and wrinkles. Well, you could wrap the ball in very stretchy cloth. Then you could write "For Bobby, Happy Birthday!" on the cloth. But when you unwrapped the cloth, the message would be badly distorted. So every flat map of the earth is really a lie because the earth is not flat. The standard flat map makes things near the equator look smaller (in comparison to other places) smaller than they are.
Quite a nice idea! Some geographical knowledge always helps...and this is fascinating at the same time.
What about Africa? Does it stay the same, because of the position of it being both north & South? Thanks for the interesting take on the world...
Because much of Africa is near the equator, it looks much smaller on a flat map than it is actually is.
Better yet, the Africa is the most accurately portrayed while all the other continents are distorted. It's not smaller technically, it's the way it is and all the rest are bigger.
You would almost believe the world is round!
i don´t get it
Why? The way maps in Mercator Projection are made lead to wrong impressions. To truly compare sizes, you need images like the ones above, flat maps, or something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_area
:)) Будете много выебываться все будет Россией. Не с чем сравнивать будет.
This doesn't make sense
Amazing work! :)
Qué tan cierto y comprobable es esto?
es totalmente cierto, solo hace falta ver como funciona el mapa mundi clasico (el que sigue usando google maps en modo "mapa" por ejemplo") y el de un globo terraquio (o google maps en modo "earth"). Se llama proyeccion de Mercator y es uno de los modos más populares de distorcionar una esfera como nuestro planeta para que pueda ser representada en el plano. A su vez es una representación que obviamente favorece a la posición en el mapa de Europa y Norte América (arriba del mapa y mas grande), por eso se sigue usando tanto.
Don't you guys use terrestrial globe?
I had high hopes for this. Unfortunately, it's inaccurate. :-(
I can't be the only one who wants to see my penis mapped over Greenland.
This is not science. It is fictional art.
Whoever made this originally, was for sure, a bored panda.
This is widely known phenomenon: the problem with our world maps is that we try to map a round object on a flat surface. As far as I know, there is no mathematical method to map it 1:1. Because of this setup, our view on countries on world maps are distorted. Also nice fact: depending on where you buy your map, it's different everywhere, as each country places itself in the middle of the map
Fun & true fact : Canada don't place himself in the center on the map, we actually put the Atlantic Ocean/Europe in the center (like #12; #14). This way we don't hurt anyone.
In America we put ourselves in the middle because we are assholes
In Brazil Europe and Africa is in the center.
Very true. And not only that, this frame of reference greatly affects global politics. And since you mentioned, People's Republic of China does not convey the meaning in Chinese at all - it practically means Flowery Center of the World.
China = zhong guo = middle country/kingdom. No flowers, mate, but Mei Guo for the USA does mean, beautiful country/kingdom :)
Jason, ”華” in 中華人民共和国(people's republic of China) also means 'flower' or 'flowery'.
excellent Panda..
You CAN map it 1:1 quite easily, if you allow the map to be other shapes than a rectangle =).
Only one country in the world places itself in the middle of the map. Apparently you live in there.
Never seen a globe? Pictures of Earth from space?
False and false. 1) There is one way to map the globe 1:1, it's on a globe! 2) I have travelled and studied in several countries and never seen anyone place themselves at the center of the map, although I am sure the odd country does it.
you didn't read my comment carefully 1) " is that we try to map a round object on a flat surface" FLAT surface, I wasn't talking about globes :) and we have a 2D maps here 2) well how do you explain this american world map then? asea-57934...95d0e9.jpg
I lived in Australia. They most certainly don't put North America in the middle of their maps lol
Thanks for that info! I enjoyed your fun-facts as much as I enjoyed these maps.
I'm amazed at how ignorant people in the comments are. :( sorry
One thing that never amazes me is the ignorance of people. :)
Too bad the countries of the African continent are so underrepresented in the compared photo's. As far as I know they represent a very big part of the world in actual size!
EXACLTY my thought. Interesting that it's the only land mass not shown.
It is a funny and tragic thing at the same time that SO many people don't understand how the geographic projection works. This is elementary school knowledge people, at least where I come from - in fifth grade when children start learning geography they are taught the basics first - like shape of the Earth, the map projections, rotation and revolution of the Earth and it's consequences, etc...
Thank you Mr Mercator for giving generations a completely wrong view of the world.
And Singapore is still too small to be seen in any of them
All maps have a distortion of some kind.
I don't fully understand this. Can the publisher please explain? I get how California is about the the same size as the UK but the rest are puzzling.