Question

On a Mercator projection map, Greenland looks larger than South America. However, it is actually much smaller. How could this affect a person's understanding of land areas?

Answer 1

Answer:

The map is thereby conformal. As a side effect, the Mercator projection inflates the size of objects away from the equator.

Answer 2

When you look at a globe it obscures the size of countries, love for example Australia may seem small on a globe but it’s really almost the size of the USA. Also the normal map you see is one drew in the 1500’s, but they are actually a lot more stretched.


This cloud affect someone’s understanding of land area by them seeing for example, Greenland as the size of Africa.