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Africa Dwarfs China, Europe and the U.S
- Spongeroberto 11y agoI've been seeing this subject (bad size perceptions when using Mercator projection) come up a lot as a topic the past year or two. What gives? Didn't anyone ever see a globe when they were a kid?
- larrydag 11y agoI didn't read the article but the first thing that jumped into my head is why are they comparing the size of a continent to sizes of countries?
- nmeofthestate 11y agoBecause the countries, being smaller, can be arranged to fit into Africa.
- JDDunn9 11y agoIn other news, look how many continents can fit in the ocean. See how many moons can fit in the earth. Lots of smaller things can fit in larger things!
- mfoy_ 11y agoWhile I appreciate the tongue in cheek nature of your comment, keep in mind the vast majority of people don't realize how bonkers the Mercator projection makes the world out to be.
- emodendroket 11y agoThe map doesn't make the oceans look smaller than the continents.
- anc84 11y ago5673 million football fields fit into Africa while just 398 million fit into Greenland. For comparison: The US can take 1800 million football fields.
- cicero 11y agoWhat fits into Mother Russia. https://youtu.be/N3lz2GFfkEg https://youtu.be/N3lz2GFfkEg
- arethuza 11y agoPeople seem to compare the US with Europe all the time. Edit: My favourite being an, apparently serious, assertion by an HN user than Europe would fit in Texas... :-)
- jrs99 11y agoi like the africa comparisons here: http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/how-big-texas-compared-other-land-masses http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/how-big-texas-compare... the last line might help people understand why people compare these things: "If you’re the right kind of nerd, you can probably do this forever and not get bored"
- arethuza 11y agoI do these kind of comparisons all the time myself (particularly distances) - I just tend to react that assertions that Europe is "small" which I think are based on the distribution of "interesting" bits within Europe and the US. In Europe a lot of the "interesting" bits cluster together in the middle with a lot of empty bits towards the edges - the US has the opposite layout with major attractions often being on the coasts and the middle getting relatively little attention. [NB Note the sweeping generalisations - I know fine well that there is a lot of cool stuff in the "middle" of the USA as well as lots of fascinating stuff round the periphery of Europe - I'm from Scotland!]
- blumkvist 11y agoCompletely unrelated; My brother's father-in-law, while lecturing me how we younglings don't know nothing and have terrible education, insisted that Iran is in Africa and full of arabs.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoIts closer to Alaska (half a million square miles)
- baldfat 11y agoBecause most people have no idea that Africa is as large as it is due to the way we represent our planet's maps and globes. Seriously have this conversation several times a year. People really think Greenland is almost as large as Africa. I than state that we can fit these countries into the area of Africa and people are shocked. BTW US is the third largest geographical country in the world.
- megablast 11y agoWhy not?
- jrs99 11y agowhat they're doing is making up a new hypothetical continent consisting of the US, China, Europe, India, Japan and comparing that to Africa. I think it works to show how big Africa is. But yes, if you compare countries, you can take comparisons further, and it would be more practical.
- jacobolus 11y agoBlog spam (sorta). Original source: http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html
- jacobolus 11y agoWhile we’re talking about map projections, I’ve long been partial to Cahill’s octahedral maps. Gene Keyes has some derivatives and a comprehensive website about the subject. http://www.genekeyes.com/B.J.S._CAHILL_RESOURCE.html http://www.genekeyes.com/B.J.S._CAHILL_RESOURCE.html I’ve recently been trying to make some better Cahill spinoffs of my own. Here’s a conformal version: http://i.imgur.com/RhZL1FN.jpg http://i.imgur.com/RhZL1FN.jpg
- carl-j 11y agoWould you mind sharing how you go about making these? I found the Cahill projection a few years ago and was disappointed that I couldn't seem to find one in print. The one I found that seem to resemble it is the Waterman projection which is also available in printed versions.
- jacobolus 11y ago> Would you mind sharing how you go about making these? Spend a month or two reading the appropriate books about cartography, complex analysis, and approximation theory, and then write some Matlab code. :-)
- Gene-Keyes 11y agoAn award-winning 5' Cahill-Keyes wall map, compiled by Duncan Webb, published in Feb. 2014, can be ordered here: http://www.genekeyes.com/world_map_poster.html http://www.genekeyes.com/world_map_poster.html
- btbuildem 11y agoWow.. I think that one's better than Fuller's: http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1333686916-sfmoma-fuller-08-airoceanmap.jpg http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/13...
- comrade1 11y agoThis has come up before on hn, but I always find it interesting how hard China is pushing into Africa economically: http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21639554-china-has-become-big-africa-now-backlash-one-among-many http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/2163955... http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/china-embracing-africa-but-not-africans/ http://thediplomat.com/2015/01/china-embracing-africa-but-no... http://qz.com/217597/how-a-million-chinese-migrants-are-building-a-new-empire-in-africa/ http://qz.com/217597/how-a-million-chinese-migrants-are-buil... (that third article is probably the most interesting)
- wahsd 11y agoThey don't have the baggage of all the atrocities of the past, they aren't overtly racist on principle, and they have no qualms taking advantage or the situation and participating in the corruption and exploitation. How is that surprising?
- rakoo 11y agoWhile all you say is true, don't forget that by doing this China is slowly building itself a reputation for UN votes. A major goal is to enter the permanent council and/or preventing Japan from having one.
- jonathanyc 11y agoChina is already a member of the permanent council.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jfaucett 11y agoFor those interested in seeing the exact sizes here's the area of each continent in km and miles: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Continent#Area_and_population https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Continent#Area_and_populatio... One thing I noticed from looking over the above wikipedia comparison is that a lot of the land mass is probably uninhabitable, and it made me wonder how much is uninhabitable when comparing land-masses. The closest thing I could find was a chart of currently uninhabited regions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_uninhabited_regions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_uninhabited_regions
- mxfh 11y agoI think it's nice to educate people about map projections and that the earth is not a flat map, but area hardly is a measurement that dwarfs things in any other way than numbers. In economic terms it matters how many people that land can support, either trough agriculture or it's natural resources. If it's just about area, the Pacific Ocean alone would dwarf all land masses all-together. In general this approach of raising awareness to regions leaves a lot to question, especially if it's mixed with a humanitarian tone: Understanding Africa's immense size helps us appreciate how difficult it may be to solve the continent's poverty and drought problems To answer that: No, just no. As said, it might help raise initial awareness, but that's about it. Poverty is not a function of land area, just to name Bangladesh or Canada. Alternatively one might point out, that Nigeria's current population alone is already on par with that of half of the USA's at a 10th of its area (~1⅓ of Texas). Some population density maps: Africa: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/fig_tab/nclimate1051_F1.html http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/fig_tab/nclimat... http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/downloads/maps/nagdc/nagdc-population-landscape-climate-estimates-v3/place3-popdens-2010-africa.png http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/downloads/maps/nagdc/nagdc-... Global: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/age-of-man/map-interactive http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/age-of-man/map-int...
- mavroprovato 11y ago...and by Europe it means Europe minus Nordic countries, part of Russia and most of ex-Soviet states.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y agoRight, because including all of Europe wouldn't make this fancy map work.
- xiaq 11y agoObligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/977/ https://xkcd.com/977/
- ph0rque 11y agoI wonder why they don't compare it to Russia? :)
- sancha_ 11y agoAfrica doesn't dwarf Russia necessarily, depending on the definition, but it's size is still almost twice as big as Russias.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoPopulation might be a more cogent variable. E.g. Alaskans brag that if Texas doesn't curb its arrogance, Alaska will split in two and then Texas will be the THIRD largest state.
- krrrh 11y agoIt's been done. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI
- Udownvotemeudie 11y agohttps://mapfight.appspot.com/ru-vs-africa/russia-africa-size-comparison https://mapfight.appspot.com/ru-vs-africa/russia-africa-size...
- chr 11y agoLong time ago, back in 1992, Kai Krause was famous in desktop publishing for his software "Kai's Power Tools" - a set of plugins for Adobe Photoshop. Kai is one of the designers of this map.
- mozumder 11y agoKai Power Tools had some great UI as well.. probably the most advanced at the time.
- nakedrobot2 11y agoKai is THE designer of this map. http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html http://kai.sub.blue/en/africa.html
- ramanan 11y agoRelated link : The Mercator Puzzle : https://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/poly/puzzledrag.html https://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/poly/puzzledr... A nice way to get a feel for the distortions.
- alexcasalboni 11y agoWow! That is awesome, seriously mind-blowing and fun to play with!
- oblio 11y agoI can't figure out what hovers over West Africa :( Edit (spoiler): it's actually in Asia :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tomjen3 11y agoHoly shit. Greenland is so tiny compared to basically everything else.
- drzaiusapelord 11y agoLike most "big countries" or continents in this case, most of the land is useless and unlivable. We're talking 7% arable land in sub Saharan Africa. So you have all this landmass but only a tiny bit is usable. We often see these maps with Russia or Canada or Australia, but the reality is very little of land is usable. Large countries that effectively use their land, have roads to every part, have significant settlements in every region, etc are rare. The USA comes to mind. China would qualify if they didn't annex Tibet and didn't leave the whole western side of their country largely undeveloped. Size, while interesting to look at on a map, is a kinda useless metric. For example, Japan is smaller than California, but its one of the world's cultural and economic powerhouses. Or South Korea, which would fit between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
- smtddr 11y agoDespite your asserted uselessness, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resources_of_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_resources_of_Africa "Some economists have talked about the 'scourge of raw materials', large quantities of rare raw materials putting Africa under heavy pressures and tensions, leading to wars and slow development. Despite these abundance of natural resources, claims suggest that many Western nations like the United States, Canada, France and the United Kingdom as well as emerging economic powerhouses like China often exploit Africa's natural resources today, causing most of the value and money from the natural resources to go to the West and East Asia rather than Africa, further causing the poverty in Africa."
- veddox 11y agoWhat's your source? Having lived for over a decade in southern Africa, I find that somewhat hard to believe... If you say that only 7% is being used for farming, then yes, that might be accurate - the population density is way lower than, say, Europe. But I'm pretty sure a whole lot more than that is potentially usable.
- anc84 11y agoYou should read the opinions of a professional cartographer on this infographic (or its predecessor rather, this one seems changed): http://cartonerd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/welcome-to-marauding-carto-nerd.html http://cartonerd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/welcome-to-marauding... I really dislike the article saying that "On a flat map of the world, Greenland appears as big as Africa". That is utter bullshit. Yes, it says "most prevalent flat maps" in the subtitle but even that seems not based on anything but agenda. Mercator is often used today with online maps because people (especially journalists) just love Google Maps (which uses Web Mercator by default) and seem incapable of learning about alternatives or just map projections. Yes, the projection can be a problem and yes, this is a fun way illustrating it but please go the extra mile and do it scientifically as your name suggests. What projection was used for this example? Is the 3D actually geodetically correct or did another oblivious artist scale and move things so they look nice?
- Infernal 11y agoSomewhat interesting that Kai decided to include only the contiguous U.S., on a map about visualizing the true size of various land masses. I poked around for a minute, and it turns out Alaska and Hawaii combine to have the same surface area as Spain, France, Italy, Germany, the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands, and Belgium combined.
- henok 11y agoThis is interesting!
- abandonliberty 11y agoGreat illustration, but it's sorta blogspam so here's a reliable alternative (it compresses the y-axis to achieve equal area). Or you know, use a globe or google earth. Lambert equal area projection: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Lambert-cylindrical-equal-area-projection.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Lambert-... obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/977/ https://xkcd.com/977/
- divideby0 11y agoThere's a great scene from the West Wing about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY
- lsniddy 11y agoif you are ever in Boston - you can stand inside a three story globe and get a true sense of how massive Africa is. http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/project/mapparium/ http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/project/mapparium/
- Grue3 11y agoAwful blogspam devoid of any original thought. Besides, it is obvious, looking at the provided Mercator map, that Africa is at least twice the size of US and China, so the argument that Mercator somehow makes Africa appear much smaller is clearly bullshit. The only areas that Mercator distorts significantly are polar regions. You would have a point comparing Canada with Africa on Mercator map. However the US and China are close enough to equator that the area distortion is not very significant. The fact that a trash article like this already got 100 points makes me lose faith in this community.
- elektromekatron 11y agoThe US is between the 30th and 45th parallel north. South Africa lies on the 30th parallel south. There is massive distortion between the sizes of the US and Africa on a Mercator map. edit - are you looking at the right line for the equator?
- Grue3 11y agoExcept the distortion is clearly not massive if you look at the map and the actual size comparison on the globe, I don't know why you keep saying that. Check the math here [1]. You would see that the latitudes where US and China are located are not massively distorted, even if you don't trust your own eyes. The whole "Mercator map is used (or was made) so that US appears larger than it is" is such bullshit that it boggles my mind that anyone seriously believes it. [1] http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/110730/mercator-scale-factor-is-changed-along-the-meridians-as-a-function-of-latitude http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/110730/mercator-scale...
- elektromekatron 11y agoMercator is for navigation, it has nothing to do with wanting to make some countries larger than others, it merely lets you chart courses easier and that was more important than preserving scale. From your link the contiguous US would appear to be represented at ~ 1.7 times larger scale than the continent of Africa, on average. If I am comparing area and something is generally over 1.5 times bigger than it should be, that is a massive distortion, other more massive distortions notwithstanding. edited to add - I don't think the article or anyone in particular is trying to claim that the Mercator projection was created or used to make the US look larger, I mean, the map predates the USA by over 200 years. People are trying to discourage it because it is a distortion that is only really of use to people navigating the sea in boats using paper charts.
- lexcorvus 11y agoI have a sneaking suspicion there's a political agenda behind this article, but maybe I'm just projecting.
- lexcorvus 11y agoOh, come on, people. Projecting is a pun, and the article is obviously political. Grow a sense of humor. Downvoters: if you want to see an asshole, find a mirror.