Dear Reader,
I recently watched the news from the UN about changing the world map to reflect the real size of Africa. In one online article I read that Africa was big enough to hold the USA, Europe and China.
So I decided to do my own research and I wish to answer these questions::
- How Big is Africa?.
- How does the size of Africa compare to Europe? USA? South America? China? India? Russia? Western Europe?
- Why does this matter to the UN? The UN said world economic aid is distributed by the UN and thus by it's member states 201 of them according to a country or continents size?
- If Africa is big, How big?
- Is Africa is the largest? next largest? continent?
- What other countries are larger then our maps show? Which countries are smaller then the maps show?
The UN General Assembly passed the historic "Correct the Map" resolution.
- Spearheaded by Togo and backed by the African Union, the UN voted 164 to 1 (with the US voting against) to endorse shifting away from the traditional 16th-century Mercator projection in favor of equal-area maps like the Equal Earth projection. [2, 3, 4]
How Africa Compares Globally (The Real Numbers)
The map we grew up seeing was created by Gerardus Mercator in 1569 for ocean navigation. Because it stretches a sphere onto a flat cylinder, it heavily inflates landmasses near the poles while shrinking anything near the equator. [2, 5] In reality, Africa covers 30.3 million square kilometers (11.7 million sq miles). The table below reveals how Africa truly compares to other major global regions and countries: [2]
Africa is visually distorted on most standard maps, and it is indeed large enough to comfortably fit the United States, China, India, and nearly all of Europe combined. [1, 2]
Why does this occur?
Apparently it is an artifact of taking the surface of a sphere like the earth and attempting to peel off the surface like skin and lay it flat on the table top, it doesn't work unless you stretch the top and bottom. This streching makes things on the top and bottom bigger. So Greenland and Antartica, which are tiny, appear huge. This also makes things next to the top and bottom bigger. So the USA and Europe, Russia & China look much bigger then they are. This makes things in the middle smaller, like Africa and Australia, which are actually huge, look smaller then they actually are.
The official map maker explanation is this:
Map distortion happens because it is mathematically impossible to flatten a 3D sphere into a 2D flat map without stretching or tearing it. Every flat map you have ever looked at has to compromise on something. Mapmakers must choose between preserving a country's true shape, its true size (area), or its accurate directions. Imagine taking an intact orange peel and trying to press it perfectly flat onto a wooden table. Orange Peel Analogy
- If you flatten it forcefully, the edges will rip and split apart.
- If you want to keep the peel in one continuous piece without rips, you have to stretch the top and bottom edges out wide. This stretching is exactly what causes map distortion. Because the Earth is a round sphere, any attempt to roll it out into a rectangle requires stretching the parts furthest from the equator.
How the Mercator Map Multiplies the Error
The traditional map we use was created by Gerardus Mercator in 1569 for a very specific purpose: ocean navigation.
[ North Pole ] <-- Stretched a massive amount horizontally & vertically | [ Equator ] <-- True to scale (No stretching required) | [ South Pole ] <-- Stretched a massive amount horizontally & vertically
- Preserving Angles: Mercator designed his map so that drawing a straight line between two ports gave sailors an accurate compass bearing.
- The Trade-Off: To keep these sailing lines straight, he had to stretch the lines of latitude and longitude.
- The Result: The closer a landmass is to the equator (like Africa), the less it is stretched. The closer a landmass is to the poles (like Greenland or Russia), the more it is drastically bloated and exaggerated.
Why Does This Matter to the UN?
Your research brings up an excellent question regarding aid distribution. To clarify a common misconception: The UN does not distribute economic aid based on a continent's geographic size. Instead, UN economic aid, development resources, and funding are primarily allocated based on data like Gross National Income (GNI), poverty rates, and population metrics. Furthermore, the UN currently has 193 member states (not 201).
The UN voted on this change because of "cognitive justice" and psychological impact. As Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey put it, "A map is never neutral. It shapes perceptions and influences how the place of peoples and continents in the world is understood." By visually shrinking Africa, the Mercator map historically minimized the perceived geopolitical weight, economic potential, and development needs of equatorial nations. [3, 6]
Summary: Sizing Up the Continents
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- Is Africa the largest? No, Asia is the largest continent on Earth (covering about 44.5 million km²). Africa is the second-largest continent. [1]
- Which places are LARGER than traditional maps show? Countries near the equator are heavily squished by Mercator maps. Africa, South America, India, Mexico, and Australia are all vastly larger in real life than they look on standard school maps. [7, 8]
- Which places are SMALLER than maps show? High-latitude regions near the poles are drastically bloated. On a traditional map, Greenland looks the same size as Africa, but Africa is actually 14 times larger. Russia, Canada, Europe, and the United States are also visually exaggerated and significantly smaller relative to Africa than they appear. [3, 9, 10]
References and Sources
[1] https://www.facebook.com [2] https://www.facebook.com [3] https://www.bbc.com [4] https://news.un.org [5] https://www.bbc.com [6] https://www.bbc.com [7] https://www.aljazeera.com [8] https://www.aljazeera.com [9] https://www.dw.com [10] https://www.facebook.com
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