Probably because it's trying to convince you that Africa is really huge, so including other really big countries would be counterproductive. I guess you could argue that Canada and Russia both have a lot of tundra that no one wants to live on so that land doesn't count or something.
I've not drawn up the maps, but it appears that North America is just a bit larger than the USA, Canada, and Mexico combined. That's large!
Dragging Indonesia around was very illuminating for me. Somehow I know the least about Indonesia of all places.
They also excluded Alaska from the United States, which would increase the size by >20%. I also understand why they didn't; the purpose isn't a rigorous measure of country size or anything like that.
>17%
Alaska is 17% of the US but ~21% larger than CONUS, which is how it was expressed.
Canada is tricky because of all the islands in the north. It isnt a solid blob. Russia is tricky becuase it is so long. I dont think it and the US would nest nicely inside the africa outline. And we cannot ever have a map without thr USA center stage. Also with russia, exactly which boarder should we use? It's probably better to just not enter into that debate.
> Also with russia, exactly which boarder should we use?
I assure you no one was thinking about that. They would just take whatever they got from punching "Russia" into the GIS database.
OT: Here’s a little bit of Russia and Canada for you ;)