Everyone here has seen this map before.
This is the Mercator Projection. And everyone knows how inaccurate it is, especially when referring to Greenland. Everyone points to Africa and laughs at how big Greenland looks. And this is true.
But here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know.
This is Australia. As we all know, Australia is divided into states and territories.
This is Western Australia, the largest state in Australia. Now what’s so special about Western Australia?
Here, this is the Mercator Projection again. Look at Greenland, and then look at Australia.
Australia is so small, right? I mean, we all know that Greenland is altered. But Australia is still smaller, right? Maybe it’s the same size as Greenland. But not that much bigger.
Now, the area of the state of Western Australia is 2,645,615 kilometers squared.
The area of Greenland is 2,166,086 kilometers squared.
Western Australia - not just Australia, but Western Australia - is nearly 500,000 kilometers squared larger than Greenland.
For comparison, that is roughly the size of Spain.
That’s right, not only is Western Australia the size of Greenland, it’s even an entire Spain larger!
That is probably the most insane fact I learned recently.