How many Indias fit in Australia?
2.4 Indias fit in Australia.
- Really
- 2.4
- As Mercator draws it
- 2.6
Mercator makes it look like 2.6. The map inflates the ruler and the container both, and the ruler more.
Why the two differ
Mercator draws India 1.19 times its true area and Australia 1.25 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.
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.