Which World Map Shows the True Size of Countries

In early September the news went around that the UN was "changing the world map" and "abandoning the Mercator projection". We have been asked about it ever since — by customers and by geography teachers. The wording varies, the question does not: which map should you buy if you want the areas of continents and countries shown in their true proportion to one another.

Here is the answer from the publisher that prints them.

Why every flat map distorts something

The Earth is a sphere. A sheet of paper is flat. Unrolling one onto the other without distortion is mathematically impossible — something always has to give. A map can get areas right, or the shape of small regions and the angles between directions, or certain distances and bearings — but not all of it at once.

The Mercator projection keeps angles and the shape of small regions. That is why it served navigation for centuries: a course of constant bearing can be drawn on it as a straight line — which is exactly what it was built for in 1569.

The price is paid in size. The further from the equator, the more the map enlarges territory. That is why Greenland on a Mercator map looks almost as large as Africa, when Africa is in fact about 14 times bigger.

What the UN actually adopted

On 4 September 2026 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/80/307 "Correct the map" (draft A/80/L.104) — 164 votes in favour, one against, six abstentions. It was initiated by the African Group. For Africa the point is particularly plain to see: on the usual Mercator maps the continent looks disproportionately small next to the high-latitude landmasses.

What follows matters, because it gets lost in the retelling. The resolution:

• recommends wider use of equal-area projections where comparing areas matters;
• does not ban the Mercator projection;
• does not require existing maps to be withdrawn from circulation;
• introduces no certification — there is no body that could stamp a map "UN-approved".

One more point worth knowing: Ukraine abstained in the vote. Ukraine did not object to the aim itself — showing the relative areas of the continents more correctly; the objection was to the political depiction of temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories in the cartographic material associated with Equal Earth. The delegation called that presentation incompatible with the principle of territorial integrity and with the relevant General Assembly resolutions. In its explanation of vote the European Union stressed separately that the resolution does not imply endorsement of equal-earth.com or of the maps published there.

The numbers

An abstract "the map distorts things" explains little, so let us look at the numbers.

The table shows how much a map enlarges a small patch of ground at different latitudes. It does not mean a whole country is enlarged by that percentage: large territories span several latitudes, so the distortion differs from one part of them to another.

That last column shows the principle the UN resolution asks for: use equal-area projections wherever comparing areas matters. Equal-area meaning one that keeps the relative sizes of areas correct across the whole map. If Africa is really 14 times larger than Greenland, roughly that ratio is what you see on the map.

Equal Earth is one such projection.

Which does not make such a map perfect at everything.

Area is only one property of a map. There is also shape.

Picture a small circle drawn on the surface of the Earth. Transferred onto a flat map it may stay a circle, or it may stretch into an ellipse. The more elongated it is, the more the map distorts shape at that spot.

For a simple and fair comparison the points are taken along the middle vertical line of the map. In cartography that line is called the central meridian. Elsewhere on the map the distortion can differ.

On shape Mercator has the advantage here: a small circle stays a circle, so the ratio of its width to its height is 1:1.

Equal Earth keeps area instead, but changes shape more in high latitudes. At 75°, for example, a small circle on the middle line of the map becomes an ellipse of about 4.6:1. On our projection it is about 3.5:1.

None of which makes one projection "right" and another "wrong". They solve different problems: one keeps shape better, another area, a third looks for a compromise between them.

The figures for our maps are computed from the mathematical parameters of our projection; those for Equal Earth follow the published formulas of its authors Šavrič, Patterson and Jenny (2018); those for Mercator come from the standard formula.

That is also the quickest way to test any world map: find Greenland and Africa on it and compare their sizes. If Greenland looks comparable to Africa, the map exaggerates high-latitude areas very heavily — which is exactly how the Mercator projection behaves. On a map that handles area properly Greenland is visibly much smaller — roughly the size of Algeria, the largest country in Africa.

Which of our maps use which projection

Three of our political world maps are printed in the Mercator projection:

• Political, 65×45 cm, 1:48,500,000
• Political (World), 88×60 cm, 1:34,500,000
• Political, 100×70 cm, 1:30,000,000

They are good where you want recognisable outlines and an even grid of meridians — but not when you are comparing areas.

The rest of our world maps use IAT's own projection. On it the meridians are curved and the North and South Poles are drawn not as points but as short segments. Those are the figures in the tables above.

It is a compromise: it exaggerates the areas of high latitudes far less than Mercator does, while not getting areas perfectly right. At 75°, for instance, area distortion on our projection is about +31%, against roughly +1400% on Mercator.

What to choose

• Political world map, 160×110 cm, 1:22,000,000 — our largest format and the most detailed. For a classroom, an office, a meeting room.
• Political world map, 105×75 cm, 1:32,000,000 — the same approach in a more compact format.
• General geographic, 105×75 cm, 1:32,000,000 — relief and states on one sheet.

The whole thematic series is published at 1:22,000,000 as well: population, climate zones, natural zones, structure of the earth's crust, resources, industry — over a hundred maps in one cartographic geometry, so switching projections adds no further difference when you compare them (the rest — data vintage, classification of indicators — is each map's own business).

An honest footnote

Our projection is a compromise. It conveys relative areas far better than Mercator, but it does not keep them exactly. The figures above are computed from the mathematical parameters of our projection.

There are dedicated equal-area projections — Equal Earth, Eckert IV, Mollweide — where the ratios of areas hold exactly. They have distortions of their own: somewhere the outlines of the continents change more, somewhere the angles or the distances. The table above shows it: at 45° Equal Earth is slightly closer to a circle than our projection, and at 75° it is the other way round.

That is why no single "correct" flat world map exists. The question to answer first is which matters more to you — the true ratio of areas, familiar continental outlines, bearings, or something else. We do not yet publish a map in an equal-area projection; if you need one, write to us, requests like this go into our publishing plans.

And if you want areas free of projection distortion, the answer is old and unshakeable — buy a globe. A globe is reduced and generalised too, but the distortions that come specifically from flattening a curved surface onto a plane are not there.

world map, Mercator projection, true size of countries, equal-area projection, UN resolution, globe