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Travel & Geography
Why the Mercator Projection Map Is One of the Most Consequential Distortions Ever Made
Fact 1 of 274%
Greenland is actually fourteen times smaller than Africa in reality.
A map showing how distortion increases toward the poles.
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On a Mercator map, Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa. In truth, Africa is so massive that you could fit fourteen Greenlands inside its borders.
"Africa is roughly 30.37 million sq km, while Greenland is only 2.16 million sq km."
This optical illusion occurs because the projection stretches areas near the poles to maintain straight lines for navigation.
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