In typical geographical illustrations Africa’s true size appears somewhat distorted or scaled down. Why is this case?
The true size of the continent of Africa is approximately 30.37 million square kilometers, making it the second-largest continent in the world after Asia. The Mercator projection on a two dimensional scale, makes Greenland appear as though it is the same size as Africa, when in fact it is 14 times smaller!
The phenomenon referred to above is known as the “Mercator projection” used in many geographical publications. The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection that distorts the size of landmasses as they get farther from the equator. This means that areas near the poles are significantly stretched out, making them appear much larger than they actually are.
As a result, continents like Africa, which is closer to the equator, are often portrayed smaller on Mercator maps compared to their true size. This distortion has been criticized for perpetuating a Eurocentric view of the world, as it tends to emphasize the size of regions closer to the North Pole, such as Europe and North America, while downplaying the size of regions near the equator, like Africa and South America.
To provide a more accurate representation of the sizes and shapes of continents, other map projections, like the Robinson projection or the Winkel Tripel projection, are used in some publications. These projections attempt to balance the distortion of size, shape, and direction, giving a more realistic depiction of the Earth’s surface. However, no map projection can perfectly represent the three-dimensional Earth on a flat surface without some form of distortion.
A more accurate representation of the world in two dimensions would appear as illustrated in the map below. This shows that Africa is enormous relative to the territories in the North and with its sizeable, youthful population, and if by some miracle it could re-unite and adopt an integrated approach in managing its resources, Africa could become a true force to be reckoned with in the global geopolitical arena!
