The True Size of Countries
Drag any country across the map and watch it change shape. The Mercator projection stretches everything near the poles — this tool re-projects each outline as you move it, so what you see is its real size.
Search countries
Type a country name and press Enter to add it to the map.
Why maps lie
Greenland is not the size of Africa
Every flat map of a round planet has to distort something. The Mercator projection — the one behind almost every web map — keeps compass directions true, which made it ideal for sailors, but it does so by stretching the world more and more the further you get from the equator.
The result is that Greenland looks about as big as Africa, when Africa is actually fourteen times larger. Canada, Russia and Antarctica get the same treatment, while countries near the equator — Brazil, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo — look far smaller than they really are.
True Size Of keeps the familiar map but re-projects each country's outline for the latitude you drag it to. Move a shape toward a pole and it grows on screen; move it to the equator and it shrinks — its real area never changes.
How to use
Compare countries in a few seconds
- 01
Add a country
Open the search (press / or ⌘K), type a name and press Enter. Add as many countries as you like.
- 02
Drag it anywhere
Drop it next to the place you want to compare with. The outline is re-projected as it moves, so it always shows the real area.
- 03
Rotate and color
Use the slider to rotate a shape and pick a color that stands out. Hover over a shape to see its area in km² and square miles.
- 04
Share the layout
Every comparison is stored in the link. Copy it and send it to a class, a friend or a group chat — they'll see exactly what you see.
Try these
Famous size surprises
Greenland vs. Mexico
On a Mercator map Greenland dwarfs Mexico. In reality they are close: about 2.17 million km² against 1.96 million.
Show on the mapRussia at the equator
Drag Russia down to the equator and it loses more than half of its apparent size. 17.1 million km² is enormous — but not that enormous.
Show on the mapAustralia vs. the United States
Australia (7.7 million km²) is almost exactly the size of the contiguous United States — the 48 states without Alaska and Hawaii.
Show on the mapJapan vs. Germany
Japan looks small next to China, but at 378,000 km² it is larger than Germany (357,000 km²) and about the size of California.
Show on the mapIndonesia across Europe
Indonesia stretches more than 5,000 km from west to east. Laid over Europe it reaches from Ireland to the Caspian Sea.
Show on the mapChina vs. the United States
China and the United States are nearly the same size — about 9.6 and 9.8 million km² — even though Mercator shows the US as the larger one.
Show on the map
Country pages
The true size of…
Each page starts with one country on the map and compares its real area with the rest of the world.
Russia17.1M km²
Canada9.98M km²
United States9.83M km²
China9.6M km²
Brazil8.52M km²
Australia7.74M km²
India3.29M km²
Argentina2.78M km²
Greenland2.17M km²
Mexico1.96M km²
Indonesia1.9M km²
Pakistan796K km²
France644K km²
Ukraine604K km²
Japan378K km²
Poland313K km²
New Zealand269K km²
United Kingdom244K km²
Netherlands41.5K km²
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Why does a country change shape when I drag it?+
Because the base map is a Mercator projection, which stretches everything away from the equator. The outline you drag keeps its real area, so it has to grow as it moves toward a pole and shrink as it approaches the equator — exactly as the underlying map does.
Are the areas accurate?+
The map measures each outline on a sphere from Natural Earth 1:50m boundaries, which comes within a percent or so of official figures. Official areas differ slightly among themselves depending on whether inland water and overseas territories are counted.
How does the re-projection work?+
Each country is projected once onto a flat plane touching the globe at the country's own centre (an azimuthal equidistant projection measured in kilometres). When you move it, those same planar points are wrapped back onto the sphere around the new position, so distances from the centre are preserved and the map draws the result with whatever distortion belongs to that latitude.
Is True Size Of free?+
Yes. There is no account, no download and no paid tier. The map data comes from OpenStreetMap and Natural Earth, both open.
Can I use it in a classroom or share a comparison?+
Every layout is written into the page link as you work. Copy the link and anyone who opens it sees the same countries in the same places, so it works well on a projector or in a lesson plan.
Does it work on a phone?+
Yes. Drag a shape with one finger; move the map with two fingers so the page can still scroll. Tap Full screen for more room.