​Greenland and Africa, Mercator style Yes, Greenland is huge. But not this huge. Because it’s so close to the North Pole, the Mercator projection stretches the Danish-controlled island out beyond all proportion. That’s why it looks as big as Africa and a lot bigger than the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In reality, Greenland is only 1/14th the size of Africa (Yes, that includes Google Maps.) Since we see the Mercator so much, many of us have a distorted idea about how the world actually looks. Very distorted, in fact. With Mercator’s system, Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa.

“On the Mercator projection Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Greenland is 2 million square kilometres and Africa is 30 million square kilometres, nearly 14 and a half times larger.”

This inflation is very small near the equator but accelerates with increasing latitude to become infinite at the poles. So, for example, landmasses such as Greenland and Antarctica appear far larger than they actually are relative to landmasses near the equator, such as Central Africa.

Africa is 3.02 times as big as Canada At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth’s total surface area and 20% of its land area.

Top 15 countries

Nigeria

Vatican City

Safest Countries in the World, Ranked by Perception

• Switzerland.
• Denmark.
• Norway.
• Canada.
• New Zealand.
• Finland.
• Sweden.
• Australia.

The three smallest countries in the world are Vatican City, an enclave within Rome, Italy. Monaco, a principality at the Mediterranean coast and an enclave within Southern France, and Nauru, an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.