You’ve probably seen it a thousand times. The big, blue wall map in your third-grade classroom. Greenland looks like a massive, icy behemoth, roughly the same size as Africa. Europe seems like a giant sprawling across the top of the world.
Honestly? It’s all wrong.
Basically, the map you grew up with—the Mercator projection—is a 450-year-old navigation tool that accidentally (or maybe not so accidentally) shrank an entire continent. When we talk about the real size of africa on world map, we aren't just nitpicking about lines on paper. We are talking about a landmass so staggering that it could swallow most of the world's major powers and still have room for dessert.
The 14-to-1 Greenland Problem
Let’s look at the most famous lie on the map: Greenland. On a standard Mercator map, Greenland and Africa look like twins. In reality? Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland.
Yeah, you read that right.
Greenland is about 2.1 million square kilometers. Africa is over 30 million. You could fit Greenland into Africa over a dozen times, and yet, because of how we "flatten" the globe, they look identical. It’s like comparing a golf ball to a basketball and saying they’re the same size because they both fit in a square photo.
Why does this happen?
The Mercator projection was created in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator. He wasn't trying to trick you. He was trying to help sailors.
Because the Earth is a sphere, you can't flatten it onto a 2D sheet of paper without tearing or stretching something. Mercator chose to preserve direction. If you’re a 16th-century sailor, you need a straight line on your map to be a straight line on the ocean. To keep those angles correct, he had to stretch the areas further from the equator.
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Since Africa sits right in the middle, it stays relatively "true." But the further North or South you go, the more the map "inflates" the land. Since Europe and North America are far from the equator, they get a massive, undeserved ego boost.
The Jigsaw Puzzle: What actually fits in Africa?
In 2010, a graphic designer named Kai Krause created a visualization that went viral before "going viral" was even a thing. He took the outlines of other major countries and tucked them inside the silhouette of Africa like a giant game of Tetris.
The results are kinda mind-blowing.
Inside the real size of africa on world map, you can comfortably fit:
- The entire contiguous United States
- China
- India
- Japan
- The United Kingdom
- Germany, France, Italy, and Spain
- And still have room left over for a good chunk of Eastern Europe.
If you add up the land area of the U.S. (9.8 million sq km), China (9.6 million sq km), and India (3.3 million sq km), you're only at about 22.7 million square kilometers. Africa is 30.37 million.
It’s not just "big." It's "half the world's major superpowers combined" big.
The Psychological Toll of a "Small" Africa
It’s easy to say, "Who cares? It's just a map."
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But the African Union doesn't see it that way. In fact, recently, there’s been a massive push for schools and governments to ditch Mercator for the Equal Earth projection.
Why? Because maps aren't just tools; they're worldviews.
When you spend your entire childhood looking at a map where Europe is the center and Africa is tucked away, looking smaller than Russia, it changes how you perceive power. It makes Africa look marginal. It makes it look like a place that is "manageable" or "less than."
Moky Makura, who runs the advocacy group Africa No Filter, recently called the Mercator map the "world's longest misinformation campaign." When you see Africa at its true scale, you start to realize why its resources, its 1.4 billion people, and its 54 distinct nations are so central to the future of the planet.
Russia vs. Africa: The ultimate comparison
On Google Maps (which uses a version of Mercator for web browsing), Russia looks like it could eat Africa for breakfast.
Honestly, it’s not even close.
Africa is nearly twice the size of Russia. Russia is huge, don't get me wrong (about 17 million sq km), but it’s nowhere near the 30 million mark of the African continent. On your phone screen, Russia looks like a giant pancake draped over the top of the world, while Africa looks like a small heart in the center.
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Moving Toward a Fairer Map
So, what’s the fix? There isn’t one "perfect" map because you can't perfectly flatten a sphere. But we have better options now.
The Gall-Peters projection is one you might have seen in The West Wing. It keeps the area sizes accurate, but it makes the continents look "stretched" or "droopy." It’s geographically honest about size, but it makes South America and Africa look like they’ve been pulled through a pasta maker.
Then there’s the Equal Earth projection. This is the one the African Union is currently backing. It’s a modern compromise. It keeps the sizes accurate relative to one another but manages to keep the shapes looking "normal" enough that you don't feel like you're looking at a Funhouse mirror.
What you can do to see the truth
If you really want to mess with your brain, go to a site called The True Size Of. It lets you drag countries around the map.
If you grab the United States and drag it over to the equator, it shrinks. If you drag the Democratic Republic of the Congo up to where Greenland is, it becomes a monster. It’s the easiest way to un-learn years of map-bias in about thirty seconds.
Actionable Next Steps:
- Check your sources: If you're a teacher or a parent, look at the maps in your home or classroom. If Greenland looks as big as Africa, it’s time for an upgrade.
- Use the True Size tool: Spend 5 minutes dragging "large" northern countries over Africa to visually reset your internal scale.
- Support Equal Area maps: When buying wall art or educational materials, specifically search for "Equal Earth" or "Mollweide" projections to ensure you're seeing the world's true proportions.
The world is a lot bigger than we were taught. It's time our maps caught up.