Greenland is smaller than the maps show

Greenland is smaller than maps show; understand why If you don’t see a problem with the classic world map, perhaps you are being deceived. In fact, many people have been fooled by it since the 16th century. ✅ Follow the g1 international news channel on WhatsApp We’re talking about Greenland. It may seem gigantic, but it is not as big as the maps make it seem. On many maps, Greenland appears larger than the entire African continent. But in reality, Africa is about 30 million square kilometers – an area approximately 14 times larger than Greenland. Icebergs in Disko Bay, Greenland AP/John McConnico This distortion occurs because of the so-called Mercator Projection, a type of map created in 1596 to facilitate maritime navigation. The problem is that, despite being developed more than four centuries ago, this is still the most used world map in the world. The projection preserves angles and directions, but distorts the actual sizes of the continents. As a result, regions close to the poles, such as Greenland and Europe, appear much larger than they really are, while areas close to the Equator – such as Africa – end up being underestimated. So much so that, last year, the African Union supported a proposal to replace the Mercator map with an Equal Earth map, which more faithfully represents the real areas of the countries. Platforms like Google Earth also offer a more realistic view, by showing the planet in the form of a globe. This whole controversy about Greenland gained strength after Trump openly said that he would like the autonomous Danish territory to be integrated into the United States. And this conversation is not new today. In a book published in 2022, Trump even said that the size of the island is “huge”.

Source link