I'm not sure a clip of the West Wing has ever been more on-topic: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM</a><p>See also: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection</a>
I'm a Brit and had a similar moment of realisation when I discovered America wasn't about the size of Spain + France. I think it was the facial expression my (American) girlfriend gave me when I suggested we drive for a weekend away in Florida (we were in New Jersey at the time) that tipped me off.<p>America is basically the size of Europe, which really surprised me. But then, it's not knowledge you ever really need to know.
Since this visualisation is dedicated to the fight against "immappancy" I'd like to mention that Eastern Europe generally doesn't include any of Austria (Central Europe), Greece (South Europe) but it definitely does include the Baltic states, Belarus and the European parts of Russia. Just sayin'.
Am I an outlier in not being at all startled at this? They compare one of the World's largest continents to one of the smallest, plus some other countries (some of which are large; but not the two largest).<p>Perhaps this is due to being British, I am used to the fact that my country is small and that the rest of the world is in fact, very large.<p>To be fair, I am reminded of when I mentioned to a friend I was considering emigrating to Montreal, and she replied that she might be moving to Vancouver and we could meet up at weekends...
I make this little app some time back to compare the size of various countries/continents - <a href="http://mapfight.appspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://mapfight.appspot.com/</a><p>So, for example,
<a href="http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-europe" rel="nofollow">http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-europe</a>, <a href="http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-cn" rel="nofollow">http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-cn</a>, <a href="http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-in" rel="nofollow">http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-in</a>, or my favorite <a href="http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-gl" rel="nofollow">http://mapfight.appspot.com/africa-vs-gl</a>
Okay, I'll bite:<p>I truely feel sorry for being one of these ignorant people. Looking at the image I can confirm that I'd have answered the question _way_ off (USA, India, China? No way!).<p>This makes my day. I learned something, feel humiliated enough to go on and read more about Geography for the rest of the evening - and all because of a creative illustration.
I think non-continuous maps also illustrate the point quite nicely. Example: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dymaxion_map_unfolded.png" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dymaxion_map_unfolded.png</a><p>Other examples are welcome.
The U.S has a population density of 32/km^2 which is only slightly higher than the population density of Africa, which is 30/km^2.<p>That's why both the U.S and Africa seem spacious, with lots of empty space between places.
In other news: Neither Europe nor the USA are at the 'center' of the world. Nor is there a particularly compelling reason for north to be 'up'.<p>All this and more, from critical cartography: <a href="http://www.acme-journal.org/vol4/JWCJK.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.acme-journal.org/vol4/JWCJK.pdf</a>
Small point - The map makes the UK and Madagascar look about the same size; Wikipedia reveals Madagascar is about twice the size of the UK.<p>I suspect somebody did not use an appropriate map projection.
I have to ask then, Why is Africa in SUCH poverty. Compared to the rest of the world, Africa as a continent is third world. Why the hell has it never been better than what it was when kings and queens had control of Africa. Did it have a brain drain when the slaves were exported?