Africa on five projections
Africa covers 30,042,133 km² of ground. Mercator draws it 1.12 times over. Area and shape readings on all five projections, each one measured.
Where the argument starts
Africa covers 30,042,133 km² and its anchor sits at 6.5° N. It is close enough to the equator that Mercator inflates it only 1.12 times, and all five projections report an area within a few percent of 1. That is not because Africa is normal; it is because the equator is the one line where Mercator does not lie. Every exaggeration elsewhere is measured against here.
It pays somewhere else
Turn on the indicatrix grid and look at the equal-area maps. Gall-Peters stretches Africa's shape to 1.97, Equal Earth to 1.34. That is the equal-area bill: the area survives, the shape does not. Mercator reads exactly 1.00 on shape here and does not deform it at all. No map gets Africa entirely right.
This object
- True area
- 30,042,133 km²
- Anchor latitude
- 6.5° N
- Angular radius
- 41.9°
- Draggable latitude range
- -43.8° … 59.2°
On five projections
Each number is measured against its own projection's equator, not against another projection. These five rows do not share an axis - they are five answers to the same question: what did this map give up to lay this place flat?
| Projection | Area distortion | Shape distortion |
|---|---|---|
| Equirectangular | 1.05 | 1.01 |
| Mercator | 1.12 | 1.00 constant |
| Natural Earth | 1.04 | 1.15 |
| Equal Earth | 1.00 constant | 1.34 |
| Gall-Peters | 1.00 constant | 1.97 |
Mercator inflates it most, 1.12 times over. Gall-Peters stretches it most: its long axis is 1.97 times its short one.
The same size, drawn otherwise
Nothing in the catalogue is close to Africa's area at a far enough latitude to be worth the comparison.
Bigger than the map admits
Mercator draws nothing larger than Africa smaller than it.
On an equal-area projection this section is empty, for every object there is. An equal-area map draws in proportion to true area, so it cannot draw a larger thing smaller. That is a definition, not a coincidence.
Open it in the tool
Drag Africa across the latitude bands and the readout follows.