
The True Size of Africa - timf
http://twitpic.com/2woim6/full
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mrduncan
I'm not sure a clip of the West Wing has ever been more on-topic:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM>

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection>

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edanm
I love that clip (and pretty much everything else in The West Wing).

But there is actually a reason the Mercator map (which distorts size) is so
widely used, which isn't really mentioned in the clip.

EDIT: Actually it is mentioned in the clip! Treats me right to rely on memory
:) I'm leaving the explanation here for anyone that hasn't seen the clip.
Thanks yummyfajitas for pointing out my mistake.

The gist of the reasoning is this: take any 3D object, and try and map it onto
a 2D surface, and you're going to have to distort _something_. In the case of
the Mercator map, the plan was to make a map that clearly showed "shipping
lanes", i.e. if you draw a straight line on the map from one point to another,
you can travel in a straight line in the real word between those points. This
is important for sea travel (the Mercator map was created in the 1500's). The
trade-off to this decision was that sizes were distorted.

More reading: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_map>

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yummyfajitas
_But there is actually a reason the Mercator map (which distorts size) is so
widely used, which isn't really mentioned in the clip._

Not a West Wing fan at all, but the reason for the Mercator projection was
mentioned in the clip at about 1:10.

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wardrox
I'm a Brit and had a similar moment of realisation when I discovered America
wasn't about the size of Spain + France. I think it was the facial expression
my (American) girlfriend gave me when I suggested we drive for a weekend away
in Florida (we were in New Jersey at the time) that tipped me off.

America is basically the size of Europe, which really surprised me. But then,
it's not knowledge you ever really need to know.

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astine
No, America (meaning the USA) is somewhat smaller than Europe, especially if
you count European Russia, another country whose size is often underestimated.
Though, it is helpful to realize that the United States is, in fact, larger in
terms of landmass than China, and is exceeded only by Canada (the _other_
North American Anglo democracy, much of whose land is largely empty due to the
extreme cold) and by Russia, (another country with a lot cold, mostly unused
land.)

Russia, even in its post Soviet scaled-back state, is in fact largely an
empire. Most of its land was conquered from indigenous peoples who still
inhabit it, this it not too different from both the United States and Canada,
though the circumstances are somewhat different.

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wardrox
It's smaller, yes, but not by much. The USA is 9.8 million km^2 and Europe is
10.2 million km^2. Though that does include Alaska.

I think the thing that took me the longest to "get" was simply the distances
between things. If you'd asked me a few years ago how far one coast of the USA
is from the other, I'd probably guess at around a thousand miles. Top to
bottom maybe 500.

Mind you I also didn't realise Washington wasn't in Washington state.

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DrJokepu
Since this visualisation is dedicated to the fight against "immappancy" I'd
like to mention that Eastern Europe generally doesn't include any of Austria
(Central Europe), Greece (South Europe) but it definitely does include the
Baltic states, Belarus and the European parts of Russia. Just sayin'.

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NickPollard
Am I an outlier in not being at all startled at this? They compare one of the
World's largest continents to one of the smallest, plus some other countries
(some of which are large; but not the two largest).

Perhaps this is due to being British, I am used to the fact that my country is
small and that the rest of the world is in fact, very large.

To be fair, I am reminded of when I mentioned to a friend I was considering
emigrating to Montreal, and she replied that she might be moving to Vancouver
and we could meet up at weekends...

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ptm
I make this little app some time back to compare the size of various
countries/continents - <http://mapfight.appspot.com/>

So, for example, <http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-europe>,
<http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-cn>,
<http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-in>, or my favorite
<http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-gl>

~~~
pavel_lishin
I was amused by <http://mapfight.appspot.com/us-vs-cn>

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darklajid
Okay, I'll bite:

I truely feel sorry for being one of these ignorant people. Looking at the
image I can confirm that I'd have answered the question _way_ off (USA, India,
China? No way!).

This makes my day. I learned something, feel humiliated enough to go on and
read more about Geography for the rest of the evening - and all because of a
creative illustration.

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zokier
I think non-continuous maps also illustrate the point quite nicely. Example:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dymaxion_map_unfolded.png>

Other examples are welcome.

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febeling
Yes, that was what I just meant to google up as well. These maps were made by
the venerable Buckminster Fuller. And he explains really nicely, how the
Mercator projection was really sufficient when you navigate with ships, and
how it even helps that the distortion gets you constant compass reading when
you follow a "line" on the map, and what is a delicate curve in reality. It
only entered the (first military, later public) conscience when air travel and
intercontinental missiles became available that the geographic distance
between Alaska and the USSR was quite small in places.

I know Fuller is a bit of a persona non-grata among scientific-minded people,
because of his fantasy approach and his rejection of mathematics. But it was
Einstein who said "imagination is more important than knowledge."

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maxklein
The U.S has a population density of 32/km^2 which is only slightly higher than
the population density of Africa, which is 30/km^2.

That's why both the U.S and Africa seem spacious, with lots of empty space
between places.

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boredguy8
In other news: Neither Europe nor the USA are at the 'center' of the world.
Nor is there a particularly compelling reason for north to be 'up'.

All this and more, from critical cartography: <http://www.acme-
journal.org/vol4/JWCJK.pdf>

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hugh3
At least the placement of Europe in the middle of the map makes sense, because
then the map edge occurs in the middle of the Pacific and doesn't cut anything
important in half (no offence, Aleutian Islanders!) Similarly, Australian-made
world maps stick the map edge in the Atlantic. But putting the Americas in the
middle of the map makes no sense, you have to cut Eurasia in half somewhere.

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seanlinmt
I for one prefer this map with New Zealand in the centre ;)
<http://flourish.org/upsidedownmap/mcarthur-large.jpg>

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advisedwang
Small point - The map makes the UK and Madagascar look about the same size;
Wikipedia reveals Madagascar is about twice the size of the UK.

I suspect somebody did not use an appropriate map projection.

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mgunes
Is this by _the_ Kai Krause?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Krause>

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camiller
Left off Alaska, but there is plenty of unallocated gray area in the Africa
outline so I'll call it a wash.

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BrandonM
Leaving off Alaska is pretty significant, indeed:
[http://www.usmarshals.gov/district/ak/images/alaska-
small.gi...](http://www.usmarshals.gov/district/ak/images/alaska-small.gif)

I assume that the numbers to the left of the image (area of USA) include
Alaska, so I think your comment actually is pretty accurate: the unallocated
gray area and the area of Alaska must be pretty close to the same.

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iterationx
africa 30m km^2 moon 38m km^2 asia 44m km^2

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spoiledtechie
I have to ask then, Why is Africa in SUCH poverty. Compared to the rest of the
world, Africa as a continent is third world. Why the hell has it never been
better than what it was when kings and queens had control of Africa. Did it
have a brain drain when the slaves were exported?

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raquo
I indeed thought it was like 40% smaller, probably because rectangular world
maps are so distorted.

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davidj
So.... about 3 Alaska's

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greencookie
Why do Africans have to have everything bigger than the rest of us? :(

:)

