Cartographic projections distort countries, which can lead us to believe that some countries are larger or smaller than others. Sometimes, this is not true.
At a local trivia event, one of the questions was to name the fifth largest country in the world. Our team confidently wrote down “Australia.” Nope. Brazil.
Country size can be a tricky question, depending on how it is asked. There is no issue with the fifth (always Brazil) or sixth (always Australia), but there is a problem with positions from 2nd to 4th. Depending on if you consider just pure land dependencies as area, or also water, Canada can be the 2nd (including water) or the 4th (with just land).
If the trivia event had targeted these positions, it would have been definitely a point of discussion :)
I can’t work out how or if I can share a photo in a comment, but we have an ‘actual size’ map based on Peters Projection where the countries appear to be the same or very similar to those in your post.
I've commented on Peter's Projection in this other article (https://www.cartographerstale.com/p/cartographic-projections). It does preserve the areas quite well, as it is an equivalent projection, but it is terrible with shapes and angles. The Mollweide projection (used in the second picture comparing Greenland and Africa) is also equivalent, and it is significantly better at preserving shapes and angles (although with some distortion).
At a local trivia event, one of the questions was to name the fifth largest country in the world. Our team confidently wrote down “Australia.” Nope. Brazil.
Country size can be a tricky question, depending on how it is asked. There is no issue with the fifth (always Brazil) or sixth (always Australia), but there is a problem with positions from 2nd to 4th. Depending on if you consider just pure land dependencies as area, or also water, Canada can be the 2nd (including water) or the 4th (with just land).
If the trivia event had targeted these positions, it would have been definitely a point of discussion :)
At last, Big Block of Cheese Day!
Basically, we in the north consistently underestimate the size of South America and the truly vast size of Africa.
I can’t work out how or if I can share a photo in a comment, but we have an ‘actual size’ map based on Peters Projection where the countries appear to be the same or very similar to those in your post.
I've commented on Peter's Projection in this other article (https://www.cartographerstale.com/p/cartographic-projections). It does preserve the areas quite well, as it is an equivalent projection, but it is terrible with shapes and angles. The Mollweide projection (used in the second picture comparing Greenland and Africa) is also equivalent, and it is significantly better at preserving shapes and angles (although with some distortion).