Understanding Map Projections

Why is the map wrong?

The Earth is a sphere (roughly), but your screen is flat. Trying to flatten a sphere onto a rectangle is mathematically impossible without stretching or cutting something. This distortion is similar to trying to flatten an orange peel onto a table.

The Mercator Projection

Pros: Preserves angles and shapes locally. Great for navigation (if you follow a compass bearing, it's a straight line).

Cons: Massively distorts size near the poles. Greenland looks as big as Africa, but is actually 1/14th the size. Antarctica looks infinite.

The Equal Earth Projection

Pros: Accurately represents the area of countries.

Cons: Shapes are slightly distorted (stretched or squashed) to maintain the correct area.

ResizeEarth uses the Equal Earth idea: we overlay the "true size" footprint of a country onto the map so you can compare apple-to-apples.