Myth about Greenland

  Ha! I admit the title is quite misleading. I have no mysterious story about Greenland although Greenland is indeed a mysterious area. It has horribly low population of about 50,000. I think the estate I currently lived in has more residents than there.

  What I want to talk is about her size. Continue the previous post, do you know why Greenland is not as large as that apparently shown in the world map? I think you know the answer. It is because Earth is a sphere but not a sheet of paper! As a human being, we divide the sphere into many pieces of squares by longitude and latitude. And now, every squares on the surface of the sphere are projected into map with similar size. But at the sphere in fact, the squares are smaller when nearer to the north or south pole. Greenland is the northernmost area across the arctic circle. Although it occupies many squares, it is not large indeed. Her size is severely distorted in the world map.

  The explanation also holds on Brazil. Brazil lies across the equator where every square there is large. But as Brazil only occupies a few, it looks small in the world map. Same as Brazil, Africa looks small in map whereas it is the second largest continent. Therefore, if you wish to visualize the actual size of every place in the world, let have a globe like me!