Jhex comments on The world map is changing: The UN has backed replacing the 500-year-old Mercator projection with the accurate Equal Earth projection

[–] Jhex@lemmy.world -5 points 1 month ago* (29 children)

how is Canada smaller than the USA in this "equal earth" map when it's supposed to display true areas? or is the pic in this post just shitty?

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[–] venuswasaflytrap@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Canada (without the various arctic islands) is considerably smaller than the contiguous (sans Alaska and Hawaii) US.

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[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (7 children)

We're repeatedly told in school and all throughout our media that Canada is the "second largest land mass in the world". Is that not true?

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[–] venuswasaflytrap@lemmy.world 1 point 1 month ago*

Yes it is, but you have to include all of those islands, in particular Baffin island. If you just look at the contiguous land masses, the US is bigger, which is why it looks bigger on this projection. If you dragged all those islands together into Canada, then Canada would look slightly bigger, because it is slightly bigger.