How the World Map Looks Wildly Different Than You Think

All of us have seen a world map at some point in our lives before, but it is very difficult to imagine how certain countries and parts of the world compare to each other in size that are far apart. In this video, I explore why the world looks very different than how it is portrayed in the Mercator Projection map. I then go on to explore how certain countries are unexpectedly larger or smaller than what they appear to be, and how some places looks wildly different than our perceptions.

PS; Don't totally hate on the Mercator Projection, it's actually a really useful map for navigation and on keeping the correct shape of countries while sacrificing the size that we can all laugh about!

Music is by Ross Bugden. He makes excellent music, please check out his channel!

[iminbreadbutfrench]

If you put antartica in africa it will melt

[borisbrito]

I didn't know russia actually could fit in my phone's screen

[lightmagus]

I noticed the map was much less accurate than I thought when I first flew from South America to Europe, passing through Africa takes way more time than the map suggests.

[Chipchase]

I’m pretty chuffed about this. I always believed I lived in a small three bed mid terrace house, and suddenly see that I could be living in a much grander detached 10 bedroom mansion with swimming pool ! 😃

[henriks.korsvik]

The fact that The Sahara is as big as the Us is mind blowing

[vanz]

“Alaska isn’t that large”



*Takes up 1/3 of the US*

[hermilapile]

I've always loved maps. This is very well put together and I loved the size comparisons you make. Truly gives a great glimpse of the different misconceptions about country sizes. Thanks!

[adriennegormley]

I did study geography in college, and have been a geo geek since. And the one thing one of my instructors insisted we learn was how distorted the Mercator projection is.
It's purpose originally for navigation route plotting.
But one thing I learned is that of all the equal area map projections that I know of, the one that distorts the LEAST is the Goode's broken homolosine. There c are some equal area maps that distort the Shapes of the continents so badly they're neatly unrecognizable.

[EllRatioBozo]

*Africa becomes one country*

Russia: Now this is an avengers level threat

[tomkelly]

As a Canadian, I can say Mercator projections are my favourite ones! I was shocked to go to Jamaica and Panama when I realized how much bigger they were than I had expected.

[ZNTY]

I like how once the colors are on a country, you can see the cities and the names

[hoodclassicsofcalifornia]

When Russia is way smaller than on a map but Russia is still bigger than Pluto

[RELAXZILLA]

In reality, Africa is a huge continent, but they show it as smaller. Thanks for this video that shows this fact that few people realize looking at the map.

[niwty]

The fact the UK, and particularly England, is so small shows you just how much it punched above its weight when building its empire.
Respect.

[adriankeller]

Me sees russia in globe:
Reality is often disappointing...

[dhanushbhandary]

UK is the best example of "Size doesn't matter"

[webbberman]

I have watch a couple of your videos everyday. Love that you keep your personal opinion out and it is fact base.

The graphics, animation and editing, etc are excellent.

Love this shit!

[Knightmare]

I never liked how the Mercator projection was used so commonly as a classroom kind of map, it was created for air travel so they could have straight lines on the map. There are other projections that don’t distort as much I think would work better.

[darth]

Basically the closer to the poles a country is, the more distorted its size becomes.

[jokolololo_]

Alaska is not that big “moves Alaska to Europe” bigger than most Central Europe