Countries That Are WAY Bigger Than You Think

Summary by Krater

This video examines how the Mercator projection distorts the relative sizes of countries and continents by comparing familiar world map shapes with alternative country comparisons, concluding that Europe and the West are much smaller than commonly perceived.

From the video

Answers: Why does the world map make countries look the wrong size?

• Mercator projection map distortion
• country size comparisons
• world map geography misconceptions
• island size comparisons
• African country size comparisons

What it concludes

• Most people's perception of the actual size of countries across the world is wrong because standard world maps distort the shape and size of countries.
• Java has more people living on it than the entire population of Russia.
• Japan is home to 127 million people, which is 25 times more than New Zealand.
• Indonesia spans a distance greater than the entire continental US, and greater than the distance from Ireland to Uzbekistan.
• Ireland and South Korea have very similar shapes and sizes despite vastly different populations.
• Georgia the state is more than twice as big as Georgia the country with almost three times the population.