The True Size of Africa

How big is Africa? A question often asked but rarely understood when only a km² figure is given.

Africa is larger in area than the USA, China, India, Japan and all of Europe combined.

The graphical map presentation below is meant only as an aid to illustrate the fact that Africa is much larger than many people assume. Some countries have been rotated or organized to fit their areas inside the graphic (e.g. China).

Please note:

The figure in the table for the USA does include Alaska and Hawaii, but they are not used in the map, as are a handful of other entries (such as Norway and Sweden).

The reason for this is that the map purposely uses familiar shapes because the mathematically exact depiction, using equal area scaling would be even more drastic, but would appear highly distorted.

The small maps below are visualized in the same way giving a view in relation to Africa that is rarely seen.

It is worth looking at "Bucky Fullers" maps or the "Peters" equal area proposals to see the real shape of countries and continents.

The main aim of this presentation is to demonstrate that Africa is truly immense...

Thanks to Kai Kruse for this informative contribution to a better understanding of the true size of Africa.