Sudan vs Mongolia: the underdog is bigger
Sudan is about 19% larger than Mongolia — 1.87 million km² to 1.56 million — though Mercator makes Mongolia look the wider sprawl.
By W. Viljoen · Published 21 June 2026
Sudanvs
Mongolia- Sudan1,866,165 km²
- Mongolia1,564,048 km² · 2.2× 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.A lopsided contest, the wrong way round
Mongolia stretches across northern Asia and looks every bit the wide, empty giant.
Sudan, low on the map in northeast Africa, looks the more compact of the two. Yet
Sudan is comfortably the larger country.
The numbers
- Sudan: ~1.87 million km²
- Mongolia: ~1.56 million km²
Sudan is about 19% larger than Mongolia — a solid margin the map hides from you.
Why the map lies
Mongolia sits around 45° north, well inside the band where Mercator widens
everything. Sudan straddles the lower northern latitudes near the tropics, where the
projection is close to honest. So Mongolia is stretched while Sudan is drawn near
true size — and the bigger country ends up looking smaller.
Try it
Drag Mongolia south toward Sudan's latitudes. Shorn of its mid-latitude stretch,
its footprint settles below Sudan's — the underdog takes it.