The Map Lied — Why does Greenland look as big as Africa on a world map?

On a world map Greenland looks about the size of Africa. It is not: Africa is fourteen times bigger. This lesson shows why, with your own hands. A flat map has to stretch a round world to make it fit, and the stretch grows the further you go from the equator - so everything near the top and the bottom of a world map is far smaller than it looks. Drag Greenland down to the equator and watch it shrink to its real size.