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Comment by petermcneeley | Hacker News Reader

Ya people have no idea how big Africa truly is

Here is the UK in Africa: https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTAyODQ3Nzg.NTkyNDI2Nw*...

Note of course this includes Scotland! The traditional English are basically a dot.

I don't get why people say this / focus on Africa in this conversation. I've never thought Africa was small and was taught about the Berlin Conference, etc in school.

All the large continents are near the equator and hence the relative size of Africa, Australia, North/South America, Asia is not affected much by the projection. Antarctica is big too, even though wildly exaggerated by Mercator.

If anything, it makes more sense to say people don't realize how small UK/Europe is.

> I don't get why people say this / focus on Africa in this conversation.

Because the resolution specifically talks about the supposed injustice Mercator has perpetrated upon Africa over the centuries, and loudly trumpets that adopting Equal Earth is an act of reparation toward Africa.

“Noting the proclamation by the African Union of 2025 as the year of “Justice for Africans and people of African descent through reparations”, and decision Assembly/AU/Dec.942 (XXXIX), adopted by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in February 2026 in Addis Ababa, endorsing the period 2026–2035 as a decade of action dedicated to justice for Africans and people of African descent through reparations,”

“Noting with satisfaction the adoption by the African Union of the Equal Earth cartographic projection, which more accurately represents the sizes of all continents, particularly Africa,”

“Convinced that correcting cartographic distortions of continental sizes constitutes an act of cognitive justice and memorial reparation, understood as promoting accurate geographical knowledge, as well as historical truth, education and awareness-raising, and promotes mutual understanding among peoples,”

“Affirms that cartographic distortions of continental sizes inherited from history have cognitive, educational, cultural, geopolitical and socioeconomic impacts and constitute historical biases, the correction of which will promote recognition, justice and development, particularly with regard to the African continent;”

“Recognizes that the Mercator projection, widely used around the world, particularly distorts, from the perspective of area representation, continental masses located far from the equator, resulting in a proportional shrinkage of Africa and other regions;”

https://docs.un.org/en/A/80/L.104

> the supposed injustice Mercator has perpetrated upon Africa over the centuries

Centuries of injustice!

Good god. I simply fail to understand such a choice of words.

The imitiave was brought im by African countries. They wamt to look bigger and it is their argument. That is why it is a topic.

Because they imply racism and colonialism

I for one am disappointed that it took 500 years for people to acknowledge that the most important consideration when choosing a map is its emotional impact on the people of Africa.

North America is very affected, Mercator makes it look as big or bigger than Africa when it's actually quite smaller.

Continents are in truesizeof btw. Asia is much bigger than Africa, North America is only a little smaller. When you account for the Sahara Desert of course, there is more usable land in North America.

https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b35... Figure 10 shows that Africa has more Arable land than North America.

And I wouldn't call 29.6 <> 21.3 a little smaller, Africa is 39% bigger than North America.

Downvotes?

Just drag South America or Australia onto Africa and tell me it changed more than a few percent in size. Barely perceptible.

North America is not 21.3 but 24.7e^6 m^3 according to google, so the ratio is 4:3. Asia to Africa is 3:2

Arable in your stats just means cultivated, it isn't a measure of the natural productivity. People in Africa work poorer lands due to necessity.

North America has more non-desert land than Africa and produces 3x as much food. Asia nearly 10x food production. Europe 2x. Antarctica has no non-desert land and Australia has very little. Asia has the most by a long way. This lines up pretty well with each continent's historical economic significance.

Regarding 'small Africa' conspiracy - I have never not been told that Africa is a huge continent. Documentaries, podcasts, TED talks, movies, Top Gear, books, atlases (they all have multiple projections btw), globes, video games. Five weeks in a balloon? I may have consumed well over 100 hours of media romanticizing the vast scale of Africa. Colonialists had no reason to conceal it either - selling big Africa investment (exploitation) opportunities was their business model

This is a Mandela effect moment for me. Or maybe it's an American education thing?

No its just people lying. I remember being told 30 years ago that a flat map and a globe make countries look different since a kid asked why continenents looked different when we were looking at a globe

I would expect that most people have seen a globe at least once in their life though? ;)

> Note of course this includes Scotland!

Don't worry; Americans assume as a matter of course that England includes Scotland. Your internal political divisions are of interest only to you.

The widget also appears to include Northern Ireland, which, unlike Scotland, Americans probably wouldn't expect.

And northern Ireland

Please no. Africa has suffered enough.

And people have no idea how diverse the cultures in Africa are.

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