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COUNTRIES´ SIZE

We have spent our entire lives looking at the wrong map: the Mercator projection,which is the most frequently one used on the world maps. It enormously distorts the size of the countries or territories closest to the poles (essentially, those that are in the northern hemisphere) and, in comparison with it, it minimizes those that are closed to Ecuador, especially, South America and Africa.  That explains why we have been mistakenly thinking that Greenland is similar in size to Africa, when in fact it is fifteen times smaller!

[Mercator projection of the world]
Moreover, a new projection to measure the countries was used at the beginning of the eighties in order to solve Mercator projection´s problematic: Gall–Peters projection. However, it was a terrible idea because it incurred a series of topographical errors.

[The Gall–Peters projection of the world map]

This distorting effect is inevitable due to the Earth is a sphere and not a disk, as some people believe. Therefore the world map is a bidemensional projection of that sphere. According to the size of the countries, we can observe how European countries are clearly overrepresented in relation to the neighbouring countries, but at the same time they are reduced in relation to those that are in the  north. Thus, Spain seems much bigger if we compare it on equal terms with Scandinavia, but it becomes a trifle when it is located between the equatorial countries, such as Brazil or India.

Due to this problematic that shows the maps, I would like to share "The true size of..." webpage. From my point of view, I consider really interesting this webpage because it brings closer the real size of all the countries of the world to the reality and also, this helps us to compare the extension of different countries. Finally, I would also like to share a picture that represents the areas of all the world´s countries and it organises them according to their sizes.


TOP 10 Biggest countries in the world by area (measured in square kilometers of land area.)
  1. Russia
  2. Canada
  3. United States of America
  4. China
  5. Brazil
  6. Australia
  7. India
  8. Argentina
  9. Kazakhstan
  10. Algeria
FUN FACT! 
These ten countries together suppose the 49% of the Earth´s surface.  

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