Slide it south: the Arctic giants shrink to the equator
Greenland is drawn about 9× too big and Canada about 5× — drag them toward the equator and the live readout shows that inflation drain to nothing.
By W. Viljoen · Published 21 June 2026
Greenlandvs
Canada- Greenland2,142,677 km² · 9.9× on the map
- Canada9,916,652 km² · 5.8× on the map
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.The map's biggest beneficiaries
Greenland and Canada sit high in the Arctic, the band where Mercator inflates
hardest. Up there they sprawl like they rival whole continents. Most of that bulk
isn't land — it's the map.
The numbers
Their true areas, and how much bigger the map draws each at its centre:
- Greenland (~71° N): 2,142,677 km², drawn ~9× too big.
- Canada (~64° N): 9,916,652 km², drawn ~5× too big.
Why the map lies
The area stretch is sec²(latitude). At Greenland's ~71° that comes to about 9×; at
Canada's ~64°, about 5×. Slide either toward the equator — where sec² falls to 1 —
and the inflation simply disappears. The country keeps its real size the whole way
down, so all you're removing is the lie.
Try it
Drag Greenland and Canada south toward the equator, one after the other. The readout
falls from ~9× and ~5× toward 1.0× as they go — Greenland settling to a fraction
of its Arctic sprawl, Canada to its true (still vast) size.