Why is Africa smaller than it actually is?
On most world maps, Africa looks roughly the same size as Greenland or Europe. In reality, the continent is far larger, and the reason lies in how the world is drawn.
The most commonly used world map, known as the Mercator projection, was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 for navigation. While it preserves accurate directions across the oceans, it distorts the relative size of landmasses.
As a result, regions closer to the poles, like Europe and North America, appear far bigger than they actually are, while equatorial continents, including Africa and South America, are dramatically shrunken.
Africa is about 30.3 million square kilometres, making it the second-largest continent on Earth.
It is three times bigger than Europe, yet many maps make it look nearly the same size.
The United States, China, India, and most of Western Europe could all fit inside Africa’s landmass at once.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
