Accurate World Map By Land Mass

Entries in this list include but are not limited to those in the iso 3166 1 standard which includes sovereign states and dependent territories.

Accurate world map by land mass. This is a list of the world s countries and their dependent territories by area ranked by total area. Today s infographic comes from the design studio art lebedev and shows the true size of the world s land masses in order from largest to smallest using data from nasa and google. For starters africa is way bigger than it looks and greenland isn t nearly so vast. We all know most maps of the world aren t entirely accurate.

Check out the actual shape and size of each land mass without any distortions. Japanese architect hajime narukawa invented this projection in 1999 by equally dividing a spherical surface into 96 triangles. The areas of such largely unrecognised states are in most cases. The mercator projection the map most commonly seen hanging in classrooms and in text books was created in 1596 to help sailors navigate the world.

You may be surprised at what you find. Is greenland really as big as all of africa. But looking at a map based on the mercator projection you would think so. A great tool for educators.

Largely unrecognised states not in iso 3166 1 are included in the list in ranked order. The image you re picturing will most likely resemble the mercator projection a 2d representation of the globe created in the 1500s which most maps you commonly. Drag and drop countries around the map to compare their relative size. The map was an attempt at a compromise between distorting the areas of continents and the angles of coordinate line.

The world map you are probably familiar with is called the mercator projection below which was developed all the way back in 1569 and greatly distorts the relative areas of land masses. But a designer in japan has created a map that s so accurate it s almost as good as a globe and it s probably one of the best estimations you ll see of the real size of countries. It was used by both rand mcnally and the national geographic society at one point. The robinson isn t as extreme however taking the form of a much more gentle oval.

This attempt at creating a faithful world map took a similar tack to the sinusoidal by pulling out the edges of the map to mimic a sphere. To give the world a more accurate depiction narukawa created a different method that aims to create a map where all the land areas and seas are accurately sized. In fact authagraph world map is so proportionally perfect it magically folds it into a three dimensional globe. All 193 member states of the united nations plus the vatican city are given a rank number.