The true size of countries

Pick a country, a state or a province, then drag it. On this map, as on most world maps, land far from the equator is drawn larger than it is; a country you move keeps its real size and the map stretches it as it would any land there. Side by side shows them all at one true scale.

Why do countries look the wrong size?

A globe is round and a screen is flat, so every world map stretches something. Most maps online, and this one, use the Mercator projection: it keeps shapes and directions right in each small place, which is why it suits zooming and navigation, but it widens the map more and more toward the poles. At 60° north, Mercator draws land four times larger in area than the same land at the equator; Greenland, near 72°, is drawn about ten times too large.

How this tool works

When you drag a country, it is moved on the globe, not on the flat map: its outline is carried along a great circle to where you let go, so its real size and shape never change. The map then draws it with the same stretch as everything else at that latitude. Drag Greenland down to Africa and it shrinks to its real size, about 2.2 million km², one fourteenth of Africa.

How to use it

Type a country, a US state or a province and press Add, or tap a country on the map. Drag it with a finger or the mouse; turn it with the arrows in its row and mirror it with ⇋ (with the keyboard: Q, E and F). On a phone, a finger elsewhere on the map scrolls the page, and two fingers move and zoom the map. The square at the start of each row picks its colour. Add as many as you like to compare them. Each one’s row in the list shows its area and how much the map stretches it where it now is. Copy link keeps everything where you put it, so you can send the comparison; Save picture downloads the map, or the side by side, as an image.

Side by side, at one scale

Side by side lines up everything you added on one sheet, each drawn at the same scale with the bar beneath, so Texas, France and Japan can be compared without dragging one over another. Each shape is taken to the same spot on the globe and drawn there in an equal-area projection, so the space it fills on the screen is in proportion to its real area. A country’s far islands and territories are left out of that drawing so the main land stays readable; its area still counts them.

States and provinces

The states and provinces of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa and the United States can be added like countries; type a name, and add the country’s name if two places share it, such as Georgia, United States. So can the District of Columbia, and England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Continents

Africa, Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Oceania can each be added whole, and so can the Americas, Latin America and Central America: each is drawn as its countries, with their borders inside it, and its area is theirs added up. The countries in each follow the United Nations’ list of regions. Russia is cut at the Urals (60° east), its west in Europe and its east in Asia, so Europe here is about 9.9 million km² and Asia 44.1 million. Antarctica and the far southern islands, such as South Georgia, are in none of them.

Where the areas come from

Each area is measured on the globe from the outline drawn here (Natural Earth’s maps at 1:50 million, which are in the public domain). For most countries it is within about 2 % of the totals they publish: Brazil, Mexico and Greenland within 0.5 %, Russia and France within 1.5 %. It leaves out some of the smallest islands and the finest coastlines, and counts lakes inside a border as land. It is further off where a published total counts coastal water (the United States, 4 % less here) or land beyond the border drawn (India, 4 % less), or where sources disagree on the border (Saudi Arabia). Antarctica is 12.3 million km² here, about 14 % under the 14.2 million usually published, which counts the floating ice shelves this outline leaves out. A state follows its outline too: Alaska’s, like other coastal states’, leaves out the bays and sounds the published total counts as water, while Michigan’s takes in its part of the Great Lakes.