In another post where I was chatting with @Ewaade_3A I mentioned that Australia was bigger than USA after she exclaimed she didn’t realise just how big Australia was.
This is an easy thing to miss because we’re used to optical trickery in Maps called the Mercator Projection. Essentially a Map is a flat two dimensional thing on a screen or paper. In reality the world is both a near spherical globe and its surface is lumpy. It simply isn’t flat at all, so to make this flat view map makers resort to using a geospatial projection that translates the globe into the flat view we’re used to. This translation distorts the size and shape of things depending on where they are on the globe. Things near the equator don’t change much and things further away become distorted. After explaining over on the other post it occurred to me that this might be of general interest. To explore more visit https://thetruesize.com/ and search your country (or someone else’s) and move it around the globe to see how it compares to others. Of course we all know size doesn’t matter… or does it?
There are a few examples below
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Nice post, @PaulPavlinovich . Thanks.
Looking at the third map made me realize how densely populated India must be. I hope the current Covid wave in India will get under control very quickly.
Your post also reminded me of a new and very interesting way to represent a sphere using both sides of a flat piece of paper where the projection distortion is more manageable. Please see https://www.sciencealert.com/could-this-be-the-most-accurate-2d-world-map-yet-let-s-see-it
Cheers
Morten
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Okay, now we know how big your Continent is
@PaulPavlinovich
I will try this some time soon.
And if Australia was the face of Africa, it will be Lagos.

Never met any people anywhere like you except in Lagos. You say stuffs and I laugh so hard but it doesn’t baffle me anymore as you have said; “we always hang it on each other, if you are in a group and you don’t get the joke, it’s because the joke is probably about you”
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India has an incredible population @MortenCopenhagen I visited India in 2006 and I was astounded at just how many people there were and I was in Chennai which is considered to be sparsely populated compared to somewhere like Delhi. I’ve seen variations on that circular projection - they are an interesting way to represent things.
Paul
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The things you remember from my sessions a year ago @Ewaade_3A and yes that is still very true about Aussies.
Paul
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Lol! At least you remember you said them. You are telling some people stuffs and they are like; “me, really me? when?” So annoying! @PaulPavlinovich
And I want to be pissed that the person is 'falling my hand’, then, I console myself with; “well, it’s not my fault that you have such a short-term memory” and I let it slide.
P.S.
I remember almost everything you ever said to me, because you are special to me and you know that already.
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We really don’t realize how massive Africa and Australia are. When we look at the map, we often believe N. America is the largest of land masses, when in reality it isn’t.
Love this article. Thank-you for sharing.
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Africa, the brown continent, is a land of forests, rare neighborhoods, diamonds, gold and uranium. Some parts of it crawl the sand, while others eat the ocean water.
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@PaulPavlinovich Very interesting post!