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  • About 70 min
  • 9 steps · 2 quizzes

Maps Lie Too — Why Greenland Looks Huge

An interactive geography lesson about map projections: why every flat world map distorts something, why Greenland looks as big as Africa on the famous Mercator…

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9 steps · 2 quizzes · about 70 minutes · open any step

  1. Welcome: every flat map is wrongStart hereOn most world maps Greenland looks about as big as Africa. In reality Africa is about 14 times bigger. Watch what happens when a globe becomes a flat mapInteractiveHands-on · 7 min
  2. The orange-peel problemPeel an orange and try to press the peel flat: it tears, or it stretches. A globe has the same problem. Here the globe is cut from pole to pole into pieces, like orange peel. Try it: add more pieces, then switch on Close the gaps.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  3. Mercator's trick for sailorsIn 1569 the mapmaker Gerardus Mercator published a world map for sailors. Its special property: a route that keeps the same compass heading is a straight line on his map. A navigator could draw a line with a ruler, read off its angle and steer by it.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  4. The price: everything grows toward the polesTo keep compass lines straight, Mercator stretches the map sideways and up-and-down by the same amount — and that amount grows the farther you go from the equator. Small shapes stay right, but sizes balloon.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  5. Greenland at its true sizeNow use what you know. Drag a country toward the equator: the map redraws it at the size Mercator would give it there. Try it: start with Greenland, then try Russia and the United Kingdom.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  6. Check: why maps stretchQuiz · 4 questions
  7. Other ways to flatten the worldMapmakers have invented hundreds of projections — rules for turning the round Earth into a flat map. Each one keeps something and breaks something else. Try it: switch between the four maps. Watch the circles (all the same size on Earth) and Greenland's size.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  8. You can't have it allA map might try to keep four things: sizes, shapes, straight compass lines and distances from one place. No flat map keeps them all. Try it: pick what your map must get right. Then try picking two.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  9. The globe: true, but only half the worldA globe is the only map with true sizes, shapes, distances and directions all at once. Try it: drag to spin it. Jump to the Pacific. Then switch on X-ray.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
  10. The shortest flight looks curvedOn a sphere, the shortest path between two places follows a great circle — a circle around the Earth that cuts it into two equal halves, like the equator. On Mercator's map these routes look curved, and the straight line is the longer way.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min

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