You’ve probably looked at a world map in a classroom and thought you had a solid handle on things. Russia looks like this massive, looming shadow over the top of the globe. Greenland seems almost as big as Africa. It's a bit of a mind trip, honestly. The truth is, our maps are lying to us. Or, at least, they are stretching the truth until it’s barely recognizable.
When people ask which is a biggest country in the world, the answer seems obvious. Russia. And yeah, mathematically, that is correct. But the scale of that "bigness" is often completely misunderstood because of how we project a round Earth onto a flat piece of paper.
The Mercator Lie
Basically, most maps use the Mercator projection. It was designed for sailors in the 1500s because it keeps lines of constant bearing straight. Great for not getting lost at sea; terrible for understanding actual size. The further you get from the equator, the more the map stretches landmasses out. This makes Russia look like a continent of its own and makes Africa look way smaller than it actually is.
If you took Africa and dropped it on top of Russia, Africa would actually swallow it whole. Africa is roughly 30 million square kilometers. Russia is about 17.1 million square kilometers. Think about that for a second. The biggest country on the planet is still significantly smaller than the second-largest continent.
Defining Which Is A Biggest Country In The World
To really understand the hierarchy of giants, we have to look at the hard numbers. Total area usually includes land and water (like lakes and reservoirs).
Russia takes the gold medal without much of a fight. It covers about 17,098,242 square kilometers (roughly 6.6 million square miles). That’s approximately 11% of the Earth’s total landmass. It’s so big that it spans 11 different time zones. You could be eating breakfast in Kaliningrad while someone in Vladivostok is getting ready for bed.
🔗 Read more: Why Everyone Is Still Obsessing Over Maybelline SuperStay Skin Tint
The silver and bronze spots are where things get a bit messy with the data.
- Canada: Sitting at number two with 9.98 million square kilometers.
- China: Usually ranked third at 9.7 million square kilometers.
- United States: Fourth at around 9.37 million square kilometers.
Here is the kicker: If you only count land area and ignore the water, the rankings flip. Canada has so many lakes (more than the rest of the world combined, actually) that if you drain the water, it actually falls behind China and the U.S. in pure dirt-under-your-feet acreage.
Why Does It Even Matter?
Size isn't just a fun trivia fact. It dictates everything from climate to geopolitics. Russia’s sheer scale gives it a massive variety of biomes, from the frozen tundra of the north to the sun-soaked beaches of the Black Sea.
But size is also a logistical nightmare.
Maintaining roads and internet cables across 9,000 kilometers of terrain is expensive. It's one reason why much of Russia’s interior remains sparsely populated. Most of the 144 million people living there are bunched up in the European side because the Siberian wilderness is, well, a bit intense.
💡 You might also like: Coach Bag Animal Print: Why These Wild Patterns Actually Work as Neutrals
The Battle of the Mid-Sized Giants
Below the big four, you have Brazil and Australia. Brazil is roughly 8.5 million square kilometers, which is actually larger than the contiguous United States. People often forget that. Australia follows at 7.6 million.
It’s interesting to note that Australia is the only country that is also its own continent. It’s a massive island of extremes. You have the lush rainforests of Queensland and the brutal, dry "Dead Heart" of the Outback.
Then there’s India. It feels huge because the population is so dense—over 1.4 billion people—but in terms of actual land, it’s only about 3.28 million square kilometers. It’s the seventh largest, yet it fits nearly a fifth of the world’s population inside its borders.
Misconceptions About Greenland
We have to talk about Greenland again. On a standard map, it looks roughly the size of South America. In reality? South America is eight times larger. Greenland is actually smaller than the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It's sorta funny how a bit of map distortion can change our entire worldview. We tend to associate "big on the map" with "big in global influence," but that isn't always the case.
📖 Related: Bed and Breakfast Wedding Venues: Why Smaller Might Actually Be Better
Practical Ways to Visualize Real Size
If you’re a geography nerd like me, you should check out "The True Size Of" website. It lets you drag countries around a map and see how they shrink or grow as they move toward the equator.
- Drag the United Kingdom over the United States; it barely covers a couple of states.
- Move Brazil up to Europe; it covers almost the entire continent.
- Place Russia over Africa; you’ll see it’s not the world-eater it looks like.
Understanding the actual size of nations helps you grasp the scale of environmental issues, too. When we talk about the Amazon rainforest or the Siberian taiga, we are talking about areas so vast they literally breathe for the planet.
Summary of the Heavyweights
When you are looking for which is a biggest country in the world, remember these three ways to measure:
- Total Area: Russia is the king. No contest.
- Land Area: Russia still wins, but the gap between Canada, China, and the U.S. shrinks significantly.
- Visual Perception: Forget the map. Look at the raw square kilometers.
Russia’s landmass is nearly double that of the next largest country. It’s a staggering amount of space. Even if you split Russia into its European and Asian halves, those two pieces would still be the largest "countries" on their respective continents.
To get a better handle on world geography, try comparing countries by their latitude rather than just their shape on a map. You'll find that London is actually further north than Calgary, and Venice, Italy, sits on the same latitude as Minneapolis. Seeing the world through numbers rather than distorted shapes is the only way to get the full picture.
Next Steps:
Go to a digital map tool like Google Earth and use the measurement tool to draw a line across Russia. Then, draw that same line across Africa. You will see the curvature of the Earth in action and finally understand why your old classroom map was so misleading.