True Size of Countries is an interactive map where you can freely drag countries around and see their real surface area. And then move them… to another planet.
In an era when Mercator projection maps are widely used, many people have a distorted perception of the actual sizes of countries. The classic world map greatly enlarges areas near the poles, making it seem, for example, that Greenland is larger than Africa, or that Alaska is comparable in size to Brazil.
The new tool True Size of Countries lets you see the true size of countries—without the distortions of the Mercator projection. But the creators went even further than existing apps: it’s now possible to compare country sizes simultaneously against the surfaces of other planets or the Moon.
For instance, you can see what portion of the Silver Globe (the Moon) United States would cover. Similar comparisons with Mars or Jupiter provide a fascinating sense of scale within the Solar System.
The tool is completely free and requires no registration. Importantly, the entire project is open-source. The source code is available on GitHub, allowing the community to develop it further—for example, by adding more planets or moons.
