Canada vs Brazil: closer in size than the map admits
Canada is only about 17% larger than Brazil — 9.98 million km² to 8.52 million — not the two-to-one gap the Mercator map suggests.
By W. Viljoen · Published 21 June 2026
Canadavs
Brazil- Canada9,916,652 km² · 5.8× on the map
- Brazil8,523,993 km²
Both panels are drawn to the same scale. On the left, each country is the size the Mercator map gives it; on the right, its true size with the latitude distortion removed.Two giants, one exaggerated
Canada and Brazil are both enormous — the second- and fifth-largest countries on
Earth. On a Mercator map, though, Canada looks like it could swallow Brazil
whole. The reality is much closer.
The numbers
- Canada: ~9.98 million km²
- Brazil: ~8.52 million km²
Canada is only about 17% larger — not the two-to-one mismatch the map
suggests.
Why the map lies
Most of Canada lies in the far north, where Mercator's stretch is severe, and a
lot of it is up near the Arctic where the inflation is extreme. Brazil sits
astride the equator and the tropics, where the projection is nearly faithful. So
Canada is puffed up while Brazil is shown close to true scale.
Try it
Drag Canada south toward Brazil. Stripped of its high-latitude inflation,
its true-size footprint settles to just a bit larger than Brazil — exactly what
the area figures predict.