We all know Africa is a pretty big continent, however, this infographic puts it in perspective. Behold: major countries of the world, overlaid atop an outline of the positively giant African continent.
If this is your first time seeing this comparison, you might be surprised by Africa’s immensity. If that’s the case, there’s a good chance you can trace your warped view of geographic scale back to a “compromise projection” – map projections so-named for their tendency to sacrifice things like accurate geographic size and shape in exchange for, say, nice, straight lines. As the graphic snarks:
In addition to the well known social issues of illiteracy and innumeracy, there also should be such a concept as “immappacy,” meaning insufficient geographical knowledge.
A particularly extreme example is the worldwide misjudgment of the true size of Africa. This single image tries to embody the massive scale, which is larger than the USA, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe… combined!
Check out the hi-res version of the image below:
