The Mercator map makes Greenland look about twice as large as the continental United States.
- Greenland: 836,330 square miles
- continental United States: 3,114,885 square miles
The continental U. S. is more than 3 times larger than Greenland
The Mercator map makes Greenland look about similar in size to Africa.
- Greenland: 836,330 square miles
- Africa: 11,724,000 square
Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland.
The Mercator map makes Alaska look about half the size of the continental United States:
- Alaska; 665,384 square miles
- continental United States: 3,114,885 square miles
The continental U.S. is 5 times larger than Alaska.
The Mercator Map makes Australia look about half the size of the continental United States.
- Australia: 2,968, 464 square miles
- continental United States: 3,114,885 square miles
They are actually similar in size.
And the Mercator Map make Antarctica looks Earth's largest continent:
- Asia; 17,225,000 square miles
- Africa: 11,724,000 square miles
- North America: 9,360,000 square miles
- South America: 6,878,000 square miles
- Antarctica: 5,500,000 square miles
- Europe: 3,800,000 square miles
- Australia and Oceania: 3,286,087
Mercator vs Equal Earth: Etsy
Map and headline: Washington Post, 9/5/2026
Victoria Craw reports:
The U.N. General Assembly voted 164 votes to 1 to adopt a resolution to encourage members to use the “Equal Earth” projection rather than the commonly used Mercator map, which dates back to the 16th century. Get concise answers to your questions.
The U.S. cast the sole vote against the initiative, while six countries abstained: Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine. The vote followed a “Correct the Map” campaign backed by the African Union and led by Togo.
The campaign argued that the Mercator map, developed by Flemish mapmaker Gerardus Mercator in 1569, misrepresents the size of continents, particularly Africa, and carries unfair connotations of power and privilege.

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