Projection Lab中文

How many Germanys fit in Europe?

17 Germanys fit in Europe.

Really
17
As Mercator draws it
21

Mercator makes it look like 21. The map inflates the ruler and the container both, and the ruler more.

Drawn to scale

The two places at one scale, side by side. Europe is painted the same size in both panels, so the only thing that changes is Germany - and how much it changes on the Mercator side is exactly how far that map moves the count.

  1. Equal Earth17 Germanys
  2. Mercator21 Germanys

The two are drawn beside each other, not packed one inside the other. What the picture gets exactly right is the ratio of the areas; whether irregular shapes would actually tile without gaps is a different question, and this figure does not answer it.

Why the two differ

Mercator draws Germany 2.55 times its true area and Europe 3.18 times. The count is the ratio of the two, so what moves it is not the inflation itself but the ratio between the two inflations. Whichever sits closer to a pole is blown up more.

Ruler
Germany 356,089 km²
Container
Europe 5,939,872 km²

What each projection says

Every row is the ratio of the areas that projection paints for itself, not a figure converted from another projection's baseline. The two equal-area members return the true count, which is their definition rather than a coincidence.

ProjectionCount as drawn
Equirectangular18
Mercator21
Natural Earth17
Equal Earth17 true
Gall-Peters17 true

On an equal-area projection

Under Equal Earth or Gall-Peters the two figures are identical - for every pair on this site. An equal-area projection draws in proportion to true area, so the count you can see is the count there is. That is a definition, not a coincidence.

Open on Equal Earth

Next door

Germany somewhere else

Something else in Europe