Actual Size Maps

Actual Size Maps. Real World Map was created to provide an accurate, educational resource for students and teachers Pressing on the button animates the country 'shrinking' to its actual size or 'growing' to the size shown on the mercator projection

To be more specific, the closer that a Mercator map gets to the North or South pole, the larger that land masses appear. The map above shows the distortion in sizes of countries due to the mercator projection

The Mercator projection, the basis for the world map that we see in atlases, on Google maps and pretty much everywhere else, distorts the size of land masses The world maps we know all misrepresent the world itself: we've all heard it many times before, but how well do we understand the nature of that misrepresentation? The world map that we're all used to seeing is totally distorted

. To be more specific, the closer that a Mercator map gets to the North or South pole, the larger that land masses appear. Pressing on the button animates the country 'shrinking' to its actual size or 'growing' to the size shown on the mercator projection

. The map above shows the distortion in sizes of countries due to the mercator projection It was inspired by a similar animation that I saw on reddit and decided I wanted to try to build the same thing