True Size Shows How Big Countries and States Really Are.
Most of the maps you see don’t show the Earth in its true proportions, so it’s easy to get confused about the sizes of different countries, states, and even continents in relation to each other. True Size is an interactive map that lets you see how big or small these places really are.
To use the map, you simply search for a country or state. The tool finds and selects an area, and you can drag it to see how it changes in proportion to the rest of the world. You can also select multiple areas at the same time.
The web application developers explain:
Our spherical world is difficult to depict on a flat sheet of paper. Cartographers use a so-called “projection” to transform the globe into a two-dimensional map. The most popular of these is the Mercator projection .
Each map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. One of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries closer to the poles (USA, Russia, Europe) and downplays the size of countries near the equator (African continent). In the Mercator projection, Greenland appears to be about the same size as Africa. In fact, Greenland is 0.8 million square miles, while Africa is 11.6 million square miles, nearly 14 and a half times that.
It is interesting to see how much these places shrink or grow, and this serves as an illustration of how distorted our own perception of geography can be. See for yourself using the link below.