Greenland appears disproportionately large on many world maps primarily because of the Mercator projection, a specific method used to flatten the Earth's curved surface onto a two-dimensional plane.
Understanding the Mercator Projection
Creating a flat map from a spherical globe is impossible without introducing some form of distortion. The Mercator projection, developed by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, is one common way to do this. Its key advantage is that it preserves the accurate shapes of landmasses and shows lines of constant course (rhumb lines) as straight segments, which was incredibly useful for navigation, especially during the age of exploration.
However, this comes at a cost: distortion of size.
The Effect on Size and Location
According to the provided reference: "When applied to world maps, the Mercator projection inflates the size of lands the further they are from the equator."
This means:
- Regions near the equator (like Africa or Colombia) are shown closer to their true relative size.
- Regions far from the equator (like Greenland, Canada, Russia, and Antarctica) are stretched out and appear much larger than they actually are in comparison to equatorial regions.
Think of it like peeling an orange and trying to lay the peel flat – you have to stretch and distort it significantly, especially near the poles.
Greenland vs. Africa: A Scale Illusion
Greenland is a prime example of this distortion. On a Mercator map, Greenland often looks comparable in size to or even larger than Africa.
Let's look at the reality:
- Greenland's Area: Approximately 2.16 million square kilometers (836,000 sq miles).
- Africa's Area: Approximately 30.37 million square kilometers (11.73 million sq miles).
In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland! The Mercator projection makes this vast difference almost disappear on a map.
Why is the Mercator Projection Still Used?
Despite the significant size distortions, the Mercator projection remains popular for several reasons:
- Historical Inertia: It was the standard for centuries.
- Shape Accuracy: It preserves the accurate shapes of countries and continents, which can be visually appealing.
- Navigation: Its property of showing constant course lines as straight is invaluable for nautical charts (though GPS has reduced its reliance in modern navigation).
While other projections exist that show relative sizes more accurately (like the Gall-Peters projection or the Winkel Tripel projection), the Mercator projection's other benefits and historical prevalence mean it is still widely encountered, leading to the common perception that Greenland is much larger than it is.
Therefore, Greenland appears so big on many maps not because of its actual size, but because the common map projection used exaggerates areas that are further away from the equator.
