Hi there, and welcome to Real Country Sizes. The whole website is basically an interactive web app that allows you to see what is the real size of countries, and compare country sizes. The key point is that all our world maps are based on Mercator projection; and that projection distorts the true size of countries.
A bit about how this started (it’s a pub quiz thing):
Me and my friends love to go to pub quizzes. I’m supposed to be the geography and history guy. So, this question comes up: “How many times is Africa bigger than Russia?”
My friend goes right away: “This is a trick question, Africa is really bigger than Russia, Mercator distortion just makes Russia appear bigger on the world map. But! They are actually the same size!” We write “Africa is similar size to Russia”. Well, it’s not.
The right answer was “Africa is 2-times bigger than Russia”. I had no idea, and was supposed to be the geography guy. Russia covers 17.1 million km2 while covers 30.4 million km2. Mind blown.
I figured a lot of people don’t have a good idea of how big countries and continents actually are. Everybody knows that Greenland is not as big as it appears on the map but how big it actually is?
Well, I thought a web app like Real Country Sizes would be a good educational tool that would help us visualize the true size of countries (removing Mercator projection distortion).
But obviously, I have never built a web app. This is my first one. Had to learn coding from scratch but after about 6-months, this web app is now available for everybody. I also wrote a bunch of articles about interesting facts on how big (or small) countries actually are.
A bit about me:
I’m a shy history major with a bit of geeky tech touch. I just reference “shy” because I don’t want to put my photo up here. People do that? Just noped out of that. Instead, I will give the a much more beautiful photo – a photo of my beloved fluffy cat – so here is Pablo:
He is my mental support while building this app. His major and important input is deleting pieces of JavaScript code I frustratingly try to make work by walking over the keyboard (and spilling my coffee).
I really hope you find the Real Country Sizes interactive map useful. Find an interesting thing you can share with your friends, and such. My favorite is showing people just how long Chile is. It just go through USA, half way across Canada, and half way across Mexico. Crazy.
Anyways, if you find a bug, would like to suggest an improvement, or just share a funny story, you can send an email to info@realcountrysizes.com. It would make the world to me!