Drag and drop countries around the map to compare their relative size. Is Greenland really as big as all of Africa? You may be surprised at what you find! A great tool for educators.
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I feel very lucky to have grown up with a huge (~ 75 cm diameter) globe as a centerpiece in the living room; I never ended up with Mercator-derived misconceptions in the first place.
By globular-toast 2025-05-016:391 reply I recommend everyone with even the slightest interest in the world or the need to understand things like time zones, seasons, flight paths etc. to get a globe, even just a small one. You just can't understand a non-Euclidean space by looking at projections and 3D globes on screens don't seem to cut it either.
By codethief 2025-05-0110:02 > You just can't understand a non-Euclidean space by looking at projections
Interestingly and perhaps surprisingly, from a mathematical perspective you absolutely can. In fact, manifolds[0] are defined in terms of local coordinate charts. :-)
By goodcanadian 2025-05-0111:10 I rarely/never saw mercator projection as a kid. I think I probably saw mostly Robinson projection[1] as it seems that is what national geographic was using at the time. Mercator looks so completely wrong to me; I don't know why so many people use it. It seems to have gotten more common. Anyway, I agree that a globe is best.
By redbell 2025-04-3015:21 Really cool work, love it!
I first discovered this about three months ago in a reddit comment under 'r/geography', and I still, from time to time, use it and enjoy it. Back then, I posted it here in HN, but zero traction!
Anyway, for those interested in previous discussions, here we are:
(2020), 556 points, 266 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25104787
(2017), 193 points, 66 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327973
(2019), 155 points, 49 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20898538
(2015), 105 points, 36 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182024
I really enjoy this! I wish it would also support cities, it would help me get a better sense of the size of a city to compare it to one I'm familiar with already. But I guess city limits are less well defined that country limits. Anyway, great project!
By volemo 2025-04-3016:44 Surely any city is small enough that projection distortion is negligible? So you can just open cities on two maps side by side and zoom in/out till the scales are equal.
Use this site for that https://acme.com/same_scale/. It lets you compare any two map views at the same scale.
By zamadatix 2025-04-3014:58 That site only seems lock the zoom value of the two maps together, not correct for distortions. E.g. zoom in on Svalbard on one side and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the other. Svalbard appears larger despite being many times smaller. This means if you zoom into Longyearbyen it will appear several times larger than it should compared to say Kinshasa.
Longyearbyen is a pathological example but it's quite easy to end up thinking a city in the UK is ~1.75 linearly and ~3x by area compared to one on the equator using this site.
By triceratops 2025-04-3023:12 I wish it would support sub-national entities (states, provinces, territories) outside of the US too. US-state-only support is kinda frustrating.
By edelans 2025-05-028:34 same here, I was looking for a tool that does exactly that a few weeks ago. Ended up just comparing 2 google maps with same zoom level, but it's not practical at all. Open to any suggestion you may have!
By xiconfjs 2025-04-3012:29 +1 for cities
