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  • 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,020 The map of the world is a lot stranger

  • than you think it is, especially this map.

  • You've probably seen it a lot in classrooms or office buildings.

  • But this map is extremely, very badly wrong.

  • As we can all hopefully agree upon, the Earth is a sphere.

  • And that means that it is impossible to accurately depict

  • her surface on a two-dimensional map.

  • This particular common map is called the Mercator Projection.

  • And if you'd like to experiment with countries for yourself,

  • please go to this website called TheTrueSize.com

  • after this video to see what I'm talking about.

  • Let's take the US state of Wyoming as an example.

  • Under the assumption that Wyoming is actually

  • a real place and not a land full of tumbleweeds

  • with a population less than downtown Baltimore,

  • this example will work perfectly because

  • of the state's square shape.

  • As we stack one unit of Wyoming on top of each other,

  • we get more and more distorted as we approach the North Pole,

  • to the point where we don't even really recognize

  • it's familiar, boring shape anymore.

  • When we move our Wyoming stack south,

  • they get more squished together as we approach the equator.

  • This will happen with every other landmass in the world.

  • But first, let's take a look at some other US states.

  • They say that everything is bigger in Texas.

  • But what is Texas itself bigger than?

  • Moving the borders over to Europe,

  • the answer may surprise you.

  • Texas is much bigger than Spain and Portugal

  • put together and is also even bigger than France.

  • But Texas is only the second biggest US state behind Alaska,

  • which seems absolutely gargantuan

  • at the top of our map.

  • But while Alaska is large, it isn't that large.

  • Taken down to the US mainland, it compares like this.

  • And taking it to Europe, it looks like this.

  • And while we're here in Europe, let's

  • take the time to understand how much bigger Europe seems

  • than what it actually should be.

  • Let's start by taking France and moving it down

  • to Africa to get our first glimpse at this.

  • The United Kingdom seems pretty large as well.

  • But let's take India and move it over

  • to see just how small it really is.

  • The United Kingdom is actually smaller

  • than quite a lot of places in the world

  • that you might not expect, places

  • like Japan, the Philippines, Sumatra, Madagascar,

  • and New Zealand.

  • Next door to New Zealand is Australia,

  • and the UK looks so small just off the east coast

  • in comparison.

  • And Australia, in fact, is much bigger

  • than most people believe it to be.

  • It can be placed to cover almost the entire continental US.

  • Interestingly, the combination of the following countries

  • will not cover that same area-- Portugal, the Netherlands,

  • Estonia, Albania, Hungary, Belgium, Bosnia

  • and Herzegovina, Austria, Croatia, Latvia,

  • the Czech Republic, Serbia, Switzerland, Slovakia,

  • Lithuania, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania,

  • the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, Spain,

  • and Norway.

  • And that's not even factoring in big but not too big Alaska

  • to the north.

  • Between Alaska and the United States

  • is Canada, which also seems huge up here.

  • And while Canada is a very large country,

  • it's actually roughly the same size as China

  • but still looks like a colossus when

  • placed in Europe, where it stretches from east to west

  • to Portugal to Iran and up north into the Barents Sea just

  • above Russia.

  • Slightly off topic-- Japan is another bigger place

  • than most people believe it to be.

  • If Japan were placed off the US East Coast,

  • it would look like this in comparison.

  • But much, much bigger than Japan and also not often thought

  • about is Brazil, which is an absolutely massive country.

  • It doesn't really look like it on our map.

  • But when we move it to Australia,

  • we can actually discover that Brazil is much bigger, which

  • makes Brazil larger than one of the world's seven continents.

  • Brazil is also almost larger than the United States, spans

  • almost all of Europe, but fits rather snugly into Africa.

  • We are about to discover that Africa is a colossal continent

  • that we don't often realize.

  • It can almost fit the entire contiguous United

  • States into just the Sahara Desert,

  • and the continent can also squeeze

  • in China, Western Europe, India, Argentina,

  • Scandinavia, and the UK and still have some room left over.

  • Russia is another place that looks pretty

  • big at the top of the map.

  • But drop it down next to Africa, she also

  • seems much smaller than what our map was telling us beforehand.

  • While we're still here in Africa,

  • the Democratic Republic of the Congo

  • used to be a colony of Belgium.

  • But Belgium, in comparison, looks like this.

  • Finally, we need to look at a few other places on the map

  • to the north and the south.

  • Let's start with Sweden, which looks big.

  • But comparing it to Madagascar, again,

  • we see that it actually isn't.

  • Iceland also seems like a large island,

  • but it's actually roughly the same size as Tasmania

  • just south of Australia.

  • And finally, we have the white elephant

  • in the room of Greenland, which towers

  • like a behemoth of the top of the map.

  • Greenland masquerades as being a continent in her own right,

  • looking bigger than Australia, South America,

  • and being comparable to North America.

  • But in reality, Greenland is much, much smaller.

  • The globe reveals Greenland to be the island that she pretends

  • that she isn't.

  • And we get a much more accurate depiction this time

  • when we compare her to Australia, South America,

  • and North America.

  • And of course, we can't forget about the most shy continent

  • in the world that everybody always

  • forgets about-- Antarctica, who spends her time hiding away

  • at the bottom of the map.

  • Most people don't truly have a good understanding

  • of the size of Antarctica, which could probably

  • go either way between being larger or smaller than you

  • think.

  • But the truth is Antarctica is a huge continent.

  • It is much bigger than Australia.

  • It can stretch all the way from Kiev to Uganda

  • and, incredibly, can be placed between the southernmost tip

  • of Texas in the United States and stretched all the way

  • into the northernmost islands of Canada.

  • There are many more examples like this,

  • but you have probably understood the point by now.

  • The world is both a bigger place and a smaller place

  • than you previously thought it to be.

  • Leave your comments below saying what

  • you found to be the most interesting or another crazy

  • fact you may have discovered or already knew on your own.

  • You can check out this brilliant website

  • that I used as a resource for making this video over here

  • at TheTrueSize.com.

  • And I hope that you'll subscribe to my channel

  • by clicking here if you're interested in watching

  • more content like this in the future.

  • As always, this was RealLifeLore.

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,020 The map of the world is a lot stranger

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