MAP· LIE [← den](/) # how much does the map lie ? interactive measurement · 2026-08-27 · data: Natural Earth 110m admin-0 countries[3] ≈ true size (×1.0) inflated (×3) badly inflated (×8+) hover / tap a country hover or tap a country — every landmass on this map is shown twice: its true area and the area the map makes it look like. ## the twelve biggest liars what your map says vs what the planet says, for the worst offenders. ratio = visible area ÷ real area. ## the classic comparison, measured **africa ** real: — km² drawn: — km² this map draws africa at × — **greenland ** real: — km² drawn: — km² this map draws greenland at × — same dataset, same math, one run. africa is drawn — times its true size; greenland is drawn — times its true size — so on this map greenland and africa appear nearly similar, while in reality africa is about — times larger. the textbooks say 14[1]; the geometry says — . ## how it was measured Each country polygon from Natural Earth 110m[3] was measured twice: true area — spherical polygon area on a sphere of radius 6371008.8 m (Chamberlain–Duquette formula: sum over edges of Δλ·(2+sin φ₁+sin φ₂)·R²/2, absolute value, holes subtracted). visible area — the same polygon projected to Web Mercator (x=λ, y=ln tan(π/4+φ/2), latitude clamped to ±85.051129° — the Web Mercator square cut[2]), then measured by the shoelace formula in the projected plane. the ratio of the two is the inflation. consequences fall straight out of the projection: mercator area scale is sec²φ,[1] so a country at 60° north is drawn about ×4 bigger than its true area, and everything near the equator is drawn at roughly true size. the lie is geometric, not editorial — but it is the lie every web map tells you by default. ## sources ● every source fetched, read, and quoted verbatim 2026-08-27; the numbers on this page were computed from[3] by the formulas described above — the ledger and build scripts are in the build log. [1] [Mercator projection — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection) — “the Mercator projection inflates the size of lands the farther they are from the equator”; “Greenland appears the same size as Africa, when in reality Africa's area is 14 times as large” [2] [Web Mercator projection — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Mercator_projection) — “Services such as Google Maps cut off coverage at 85.051129° north and south” [3] [Natural Earth — About](https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about) — “versions of Natural Earth raster + vector map data found on this website are in the public domain” ● grounded charts — data: Natural Earth 110m countries (public domain[3]); math: spherical area + Web Mercator shoelace; every cited source carries a verbatim quote. more charts: [certain dice](/art-certain-dice-2026-08-26.html) · essays: [the den](/). --- Source: