India
Asia • COUNTRYIndia is the 7th-largest country by area. The Equal Earth projection reveals its massive scale compared to European nations.
See the World at True Relative Area
Most world maps you grew up seeing in classrooms use the 1569 Mercator projection. Mercator distorts landmasses near the poles to extreme sizes while shrinking equatorial regions. The Equal Earth projection preserves exact relative area while maintaining natural, pleasing continental curves.
Africa vs Greenland
Mercator makes Greenland look as large as Africa. In reality, Africa is over 14 times larger than Greenland!
Explore Comparison →India vs France
India (3.29M km²) is approximately 5.1 times larger than metropolitan France, easily containing multiple European nations.
Explore Comparison →USA vs India
Compare the world's 3rd and 7th largest nations. The United States is roughly 3.0 times larger in total surface area.
Explore Comparison →Australia vs India
Australia covers 7.69M km² — more than 2.3 times the size of India, spanning an entire continent.
Explore Comparison →Russia vs Africa
Russia is the largest country on Earth, but Africa is nearly 1.8 times larger than all of Russia.
Explore Comparison →Africa vs Europe
The entire European continent covers 10.18M km². Africa (30.37M km²) is nearly 3 times the size of Europe.
Explore Comparison →Equal Earth vs Mercator: What's the Real Difference?
The Mercator projection is a conformal map created in 1569 for nautical navigation. While it preserves local angles, it dramatically distorts surface area towards the poles.
In contrast, the Equal Earth projection was created in 2018 by Bojan Šavrič, Bernhard Jenny, and Tom Patterson. It is an equal-area pseudocylindrical projection that shows all countries and landmasses at their mathematically true relative size.
Key Cartographic Facts
- Equal-Area: Equal Earth guarantees that 1 square centimeter anywhere on the map represents the exact same number of square kilometers on Earth.
- No Infinite Poles: Mercator mathematically cannot show the North or South Poles. Equal Earth elegantly rounds them into finite curved parallels.
- Fair Representation: Tropical continents like Africa and South America are displayed at their true imposing proportions.
Explore Continents on Equal Earth
See how the 7 continents compare in true land surface area.
Asia
Area: 44,579,000 km²
Earth's largest continent, spanning 30% of total land area.
Africa
Area: 30,370,000 km²
Second largest continent; over 14× larger than Greenland.
North America
Area: 24,709,000 km²
Encompassing Canada, the US, Mexico, and Greenland.
South America
Area: 17,840,000 km²
Dominated by Brazil, which is larger than Australia.
Antarctica
Area: 14,200,000 km²
1.4× larger than Europe, accurately sized without distortion.
Europe
Area: 10,180,000 km²
Roughly one-third the size of the African continent.
Oceania
Area: 8,525,989 km²
Spans thousands of Pacific islands led by Australia.
All Continents
View full ranking & relative breakdown →
Fascinating Geographic Realities
Realities that map projections often hide from common view.
Greenland's True Rank
Greenland is indeed the world's largest island at 2.16 million km², but it is roughly the same land area as Saudi Arabia, not an entire continent.
The Breadth of Australia
Australia spans roughly 4,000 km east-to-west. That is wider than the direct distance from London to Moscow, or Madrid to Cairo.
Brazil Outsizes Australia
Brazil (8.52M km²) is the 5th-largest country on Earth, larger than all of Australia (7.69M km²) and larger than the contiguous 48 US states.