Why Greenland looks as big as Africa

The most familiar world map is based on the projection devised by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It was designed for sailors, not for comparing the size of countries: a straight line drawn on the map corresponds to a constant compass bearing. To preserve angles, Mercator stretches areas more and more the further you move from the equator. Near the poles the enlargement becomes enormous, and the poles themselves can’t be shown at all.

The result: Greenland looks as big as Africa, and regions near the equator, from South America to South Asia by way of Africa, look much smaller than they really are next to the countries of the North.

“If you’re using the Mercator map as a world map, say, in the classroom, students would just have a completely warped view of the size of countries in the world.”
— Tom Patterson, one of the three creators of Equal Earth, speaking to NPR in 2025.

That doesn’t make the Mercator map wrong: it is still the standard for nautical charts, and a variant underpins most online maps, because at the scale of a city, shapes and angles stay true. The problem is using it as a world map.

To see it for yourself, The True Size Of lets you drag a country across a Mercator map: its size changes as it moves towards the pole. Try it with your own country.

The Peters projection: true areas, stretched shapes

The best-known answer to Mercator bears the name of the German historian Arno Peters. In 1973, he presented a map in which every country regains its true area: Africa takes back its full place next to Europe. The idea wasn’t entirely new, since the Scottish clergyman James Gall had presented the same projection as early as 1855. Hence its name: the Gall-Peters projection.

To preserve areas on a rectangular map, it stretches shapes vertically near the equator and flattens them towards the poles. Cartographers criticised these silhouettes (admittedly very stretched!) and pointed out that other maps already preserved areas. But Peters had one great merit: he brought the debate out of specialist circles. His map was widely distributed by NGOs, by UNESCO and in schools: in 2017, for example, Boston Public Schools made it their reference map.

To show the real weight of the continents at a glance, it remains a strong choice, and its rectangular format fills the whole wall. We stock it from the publisher Huber in English, French and German, in 82 × 52 cm and 130 × 82 cm, and even in a Pacific-centred, south-up version. Judging by our sales, it appeals to private customers and schools alike.

→ Our Gall-Peters world maps

Equal Earth: the compromise cited by the UN

Boston’s adoption of Gall-Peters gave three cartographers (Bojan Šavrič, Bernhard Jenny and Tom Patterson) an idea: to offer another map that preserves areas, with shapes closer to those on a globe. Their projection, Equal Earth, was published in 2018.

Like Gall-Peters, it preserves areas: Africa regains its true size relative to the other continents. But its rounded edges suggest the curve of the Earth, the continents keep a familiar silhouette, and the parallels remain straight lines, which makes latitudes easy to read. NASA used it as early as 2018 for a global map of temperature anomalies.

Tom Patterson, a long-time cartographer with the US National Park Service and a world-renowned specialist in shaded relief, has turned the projection into wall maps. We now print them on demand, with his agreement: the political map (highlighting borders) in twelve languages, including English and French; the physical map (highlighting relief) in English, French and German; and a south-up version centred on the Americas.

→ All our Equal Earth wall maps

→ His shaded relief maps, from Patagonia to Svalbard

💡 A classroom idea: put a Mercator map and a map that preserves areas, such as Equal Earth or Gall-Peters, side by side, then ask pupils to compare Greenland and Africa. The discussion takes care of itself.