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The True Size of Africa (2015)

kai.sub.blue

21–30 of 226 posts

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#21
Why is the subtitle “a visual comparison with other continents” here? It’s not in the source, and the source does not compare Africa visually to other continents (except that one of the smaller visualizations conpares it to Europe), but to individual countries.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#22
post #14

https://thetruesize.com/ is a way better interactive version.

But this is by Kai’s Power GOO Kai Krause. Doesn't get more random than this, if the most prevalent output of his getting passed around these days is this comperative map.

For those who don't know his software, this was quite remarkable UI and graphics software more than 20 years ago.

https://www.mprove.de/script/99/kai/index.html

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#24
post #4

The edited title is incorrect, in that it is a comparison with countries . How big is Africa compared to Asia? Okay, there’s one comparison with Europe (scroll down). Otherwise it’s a matter of how many countries one could cram in there. Of course, Africa already has a bunch of countries, so I guess I just didn’t get it. Comparing to, say, North America or something would be a better visualization for me.

I think a lot of Americans think that Africa is a country.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#25
post #13

Why isn't Canada or Russia, the two largest countries by land mass, included?

They also excluded Alaska from the United States, which would increase the size by >20%. I also understand why they didn't; the purpose isn't a rigorous measure of country size or anything like that.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#26

I remember flying to Munich once from Cape Town and a German colleague guessed the flight was three to four hours. I said no, it was over eleven hours and he was shocked. I laughed and told him to check out a globe sometime - not a map - so he could trace for himself how massive Africa really is. The surface area of the moon is only 20% larger.

whoa, now there's a statistic for you!

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#29
post #12
post #3

Projections can be tricky. Early memory I have in college: I walked into my professor's office and she had a curious looking map on her wall. It had Australia at the center and the US was distorted and upside down. As someone from North America (US) this was a nice lesson in perspective.

So too with a polar view of the planet: https://www.grida.no/resources/7845

Shh. We arent supposed to talk about those maps. The earth is officially round.

Re: The True Size of Africa (2015)

#30
post #6

If you find this fascinating try the intractive version! https://thetruesize.com/

Wow, this is a great visualization tool because it corrects for the distortions of flat maps. Greenland is always so huge on maps, but really its only a bit bigger than Mexico.

For people trying the website out, you can type in the country then drag it around the world and it will change size based on latitude (because of flat map distortion), but you can also left click on the country, then turn it by clicking and holding on the compass in the lower left. You can also change the colors by double clicking the county.

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