
The True Size of Countries - Mitchhhs
http://thetruesize.com/
======
dpierce9
From The West Wing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1bZ0F3zVU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1bZ0F3zVU)

~~~
kj01a
Big block of cheese day is my favorite day.

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bridge55
Everyone knows the ONE TRUE MAP PROJECTION is the Fuller Map:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Fuller_p...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Fuller_projection_rotated.svg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map)

~~~
grimmdude
After looking at this I just realized why maps showing airline routes always
show arched lines.

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Benjammer
It's a combination of map projections and airplanes using "great circles"[1]
to navigate shortest distance between two points on a sphere.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle)

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moioci
Just for fun, I laid the UK over the eastern US with London roughly on top of
Atlanta. Edinburgh falls very near Indianapolis. Now from Google maps, the
straight line distance from Atlanta to Indianapolis is about 429 miles, while
London to Edinburgh is 331. This leads me to believe that this tool is not
accurately doing what it purports to be.

~~~
gsanghera
I could be wrong, but I don't think that's how it works. You're comparing the
true size of UK with the flatmap projection of US. To do what you want, you
need to compare the true maps of both countries - with the cities.

~~~
SamBam
No, because this map scales the country according to its latitude. So when you
drag down England to be next to Atlanta, you're looking at the size of England
_with respect to Atlanta_. The "true size" is just "true" in comparison to
whatever it's on top of. So it should be accurate.

~~~
gsanghera
Ok yes. An accuracy issue then as it's probably using a simple algo for the
projection. Stand corrected.

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rootlocus
Doesn't work anymore. Apparently they exceeded their google maps request
quota:

"You have exceeded your daily request quota for this API. To request more than
25,000 map loads per day, you must use an API key and enable billing:
[https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/...](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/get-
api-key")

~~~
pdxandi
That's a pretty great problem to have. Not the limit, but getting 25k daily
views.

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manojlds
It is surprising that a lot of educated folks don't know about this. I always
run into folks who think Greenland is the biggest island.

Edit: on Australia being continent - now I come across as a fool. But I hope
people understood what I meant. Also, I have had to argue against folks who
said Greenland should also be a continent since it is bigger than Australia.

~~~
vkou
Greenland is the biggest island. Australia is a continent.

~~~
halomru
There isn't really a single universally accepted list of continents. Some
count Australia as continent, some count it as part of Oceania. And some
define the continent Australia as the country Australia plus all those islands
that would otherwise be Oceania.

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forinti
A few years ago I wrote (as a joke) some javascript to make a municipality of
Brazil (Alegrete - RS) wander about the globe.

[http://alquerubim.blogspot.com.br/2011/07/jangada-de-
pasto.h...](http://alquerubim.blogspot.com.br/2011/07/jangada-de-pasto.html)

It's the largest of 497 municipalities in the state (it has an area of 7,804
km²).

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slantyyz
Did anyone notice in the About dialog that the infographic "The True Size of
Africa" was done by Kai Krause?

Kai Krause as in Kai's Power Tools.

~~~
jacobolus
[http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html](http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html)

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helb
Previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182024)

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graedus
This is cool! I'm not seeing instructions on how to rotate the selected
country.

Edit: Ah, I see it now in the instructional video. My browser's video controls
were obscuring it. You click and drag the compass in the bottom left.

~~~
hcrisp
Presumedly that is how they came up with this graphic, which shows Africa
encompassing nearly all of the US, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, France,
Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, India, China, Japan, and the UK
in its borders:

[http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/true-
siz...](http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/true-size-of-
africa.jpg)

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imdsm
The UK fits within the Gulf of Mexico.

[http://i.imgur.com/aTnhSpp.png](http://i.imgur.com/aTnhSpp.png)

~~~
mcguire
Japan is bigger than I thought; about the size of the US east coast.

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jacobolus
Makes me want to get back to working on my conformal octahedral butterfly map
project: [http://i.imgur.com/Y6ki0l9.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Y6ki0l9.jpg)

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pokemongoaway
This makes me wonder if there's some sort of official world database for how
national borders are drawn... \-- how often they're redrawn \-- how often
they're updated \-- if there are different/conflicting databases of border
data

Surely drawing each line wasn't as straight forward as it appears on maps - in
history and in practice.

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vog
Small nitpick: The country area is inverted if you move it near the poles.
(Maybe because the orientation clockwise/counterclockwise changes implicitly.)

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teddyh
I feel it is my duty to link to a _very_ relevant xkcd:

 _What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You_

[https://xkcd.com/977/](https://xkcd.com/977/)

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worldsayshi
Some countries seems to be impossible to move for me. Morocco and Ghana for
example. Also, The Ivory Coast is only searchable by its French name, Côte
d'Ivoire, while having its English name on the map.

Edit: Oh, the move issue is not by country. When I reloaded I could move a
country I previously couldn't.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I see it as Côte d'Ivoire on the map.

I also find their insistence on nobody translating or even transliterating
their country's name annoying.

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haberman
Are the shape changes accurate, as you drag north/south? I would expect
horizontal borders (like the north border of the USA, which is along the 49th
parallel) to stay horizontal as you drag. But in the tool the border becomes
more concave as you drag it further south. Why is this?

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f137
Cool!

One suggestion and one complaint.

I'd like to be able to select countries by clicking, rather than text input.

After a couple minutes playing, the site filled firefox history with tens of
entries, and I could not return to HN even after hitting back several dosen
times.

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jasonjei
I notice Puerto Rico and possibly some other territories are missing in the
United States selection. Is that deliberate since PR is quite different from
the US?

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jstanley
The projection is inconsistent: dragging a country over where it really
belongs results in an outline that does not line up.

~~~
SamBam
That's only the rotation. You can fix the rotation by clicking on the compass
rose.

But I admit, the first thing I did as well was to drag the sample outlines
over their own counties, and thought it was messy how they didn't line up.

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qntty
For a suprise: compare Dem. Rep. Congo to Alaska.

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alva
This really blew my mind. Thanks!

