Why does Greenland appear so large on some maps but smaller on others?
I'm confused. On some maps, Greenland is as big as Africa and on others it's only a bit bigger than Saudi Arabia.
Posted May 25, 2018, 3:46 AM UTC
55
It's because since earth is a sphere, it will be distorted on maps. If we cut a ball that looks like earth, it would be hard to actually get it to where eberything is showing with it laid flst on a table. It would need to be stretched
2
There are different ways to project (to take the 3d surface of the earth and map it to the 2d surface of a map) map data. Because the circumference of the earth decreases as you move further away from the equator, things in the extreme north and south tend to be distorted on maps. The most popular projection (mercator) heavily distorts area, so Greenland will look huge on most maps, when in reality it's much smaller.
2
The earth is shaped like a ball, or for this explanation, like an orange. Imagine that you peeled an orange incredibly neatly, by making one long slit down the side and then pulling it off in one piece. Now try to flatten your orange peel. It makes weird lumps, and if you push them harder they'll split, especially at the top and bottom edges.
A map is trying to take the surface of a sphere and make it into a flat rectangle. The top and bottom edges get stretched and flattened out, and there are different ways to stretch it so on different maps, some parts are more stretched than others.
2
Because a map is a flat image trying to convey the shape of the planet i.e. a globe, so the parts at the top and bottom are stretched out. There are maps that are split into funny sections that manage to represent the true size/shape of land masses but most are drawn so that latitude lines are straight, distorting everything else.
2
Because of the shape of the earth (sphere) and the way you see a map. There are many projections on how the earth looks on a 2d surface (map) but the most popular one is the mercator projection. As you get closer to the poles the countries and land get spread out and appear to be bigger. Towards the equator they are the right size. There are many projections that don't have countries like greenland being huge and there are many reasons why those aren't commonly used. tl;dr : You probably just saw 2 different projections.