Compare country sizes: the true size map

How to use it

Type the name of a country, a US state or a Spanish region and pick it from the list: it appears in its own place, in its own color. Drag it with your mouse or finger wherever you like. You can add several at once and put one on top of another with “Move to”.

Each shape shows its area, the latitude of its center and how much the map enlarges it there. With several shapes, each one says how many times the first one fits. The share link saves the shapes and where you left them.

Why the map makes countries bigger away from the equator

Almost every map online uses the Mercator projection, which cartographer Gerardus Mercator presented in 1569 for navigation. It has one big advantage: it keeps angles and the shape of small areas, and north is always up. But to do that it stretches the map more and more toward the poles.

At any latitude, Mercator stretches distances by 1/cos(latitude) in every direction, so areas come out 1/cos²(latitude) times bigger than at the equator. At 45° that’s twice as big; at 60°, 4 times; at 70°, almost 9; and at 80°, 33. The poles would be infinitely far away, which is why web maps stop at about 85° latitude.

Greenland vs. Africa

On a Mercator map, Greenland looks almost as big as Africa. In reality, Africa covers about 30.3 million km² (the total of its 55 countries and territories) and Greenland about 2.14 million km²: Africa is 14.2 times bigger.

The center of Greenland is at 73.1° north, and at that latitude Mercator enlarges areas about 11.9 times. Try moving it to the equator: it fits in a corner of Africa.

Spain vs. Texas

Spain covers 505,981 km² according to the World Bank, and Texas 695,668 km² according to the US Census Bureau: Texas is 1.37 times the size of Spain. The map barely misleads here because they sit at similar latitudes: the center of mainland Spain is at 40.4° N and the center of Texas at 31.5° N.

Alaska vs. Mexico

Alaska covers about 1.52 million km² and Mexico 1.96 million km²: Mexico is 1.29 times the size of Alaska. Yet on the map Alaska looks quite a bit bigger, because its center is at 64.2° N, where Mercator enlarges areas 5.3 times, while Mexico’s is at 23.9° N, where it enlarges them 1.2 times.

How it’s worked out

The shape isn’t rescaled by hand: it’s rotated over the globe, as if sliding across its surface, and then drawn in Mercator. That way it keeps its true shape and area anywhere, and north at its center still points north. If a position would push it off the top of the map, it stops at the highest latitude where it fits.

Outlines come from Natural Earth for countries, the US Census Bureau for states and Spain’s National Geographic Institute (IGN) for its regions, simplified so the map stays fast. Country areas are the World Bank’s when they match the outline within 10%; otherwise they’re measured on the outline and shown with “about”. State areas are the Census total (land and water), with the same 10% rule, and Spanish regions use the official IGN figure.