How many Greenlands fit in Africa?
14 Greenlands fit in Africa.
- Really
- 14
- As Mercator draws it
- 0.9
Mercator makes it look like only 0.9, fewer than the 14 that really fit. This time the container is the one nearer the equator, and so the one inflated less.
Drawn to scale
The two places at one scale, side by side. Africa is painted the same size in both panels, so the only thing that changes is Greenland - and how much it changes on the Mercator side is exactly how far that map moves the count.
- Equal Earth14 Greenlands
- Mercator0.9 Greenlands
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.
Look at the Mercator panel: Greenland is painted 1.08 times the size of the whole of Africa, which it is a fraction of in truth. The ruler comes out larger than the thing it is measuring.
Why the two differ
Mercator draws Greenland 16.5 times its true area and Africa 1.12 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.
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.
| Projection | Count as drawn |
|---|---|
| Equirectangular | 3.8 |
| Mercator | 0.9 |
| Natural Earth | 6.7 |
| Equal Earth | 14 true |
| Gall-Peters | 14 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.
Next door
Greenland somewhere else
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