Why maps make Greenland look bigger than Algeria

Good morning

Stand on the brass Prime Meridian line at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and a GPS receiver will not read zero. It reads 00°00′05.3″ W, because the reference meridian used by satellite navigation runs about 102 metres east of the famous line.

Maps and measurements do not always agree. Today we start with the projection that makes Greenland look enormous, then cross to South America's largest island and count the pyramids of Sudan.

In today's edition

Mercator projection · Fact of the day

How Mercator enlarges Greenland

On the standard Mercator world map, Greenland looks two to three times the size of Algeria. The real figures point the other way. Algeria, the largest country in Africa, covers 2,381,741 km², while Greenland covers 2,166,086 km², so Algeria has about 10% more land.

The difference comes from the projection. Mercator's map stretches landmasses more and more as they approach the poles, so Arctic Greenland is drawn far larger than it is, while Algeria, much closer to the equator, is barely distorted. On that map, the territory that looks two to three times bigger is the smaller of the two.

54.20° S, 69.20° W · Place of the day

Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego

South of the Strait of Magellan, at the far southern tip of the continent, lies Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego: a cold, wind-swept island that most people know only through Ushuaia and Cape Horn. Chile holds its western 61% and Argentina its eastern 39%, a division made in 1881. Its two biggest towns, Ushuaia and Río Grande, are both on the Argentine side.

At roughly 48,000 km², it is the largest island in South America. The tempting answer is Marajó, the tropical island in the Amazon delta, but Marajó covers about 40,100 km². The continent's biggest island sits in its cold south and belongs to two countries at once.

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↻ The feed · what moved

Between issues

GeoGrid gives you a three-by-three grid with a category on every row and column. Each square needs a country that fits both, so a half-remembered border or coastline can suddenly become the answer you were missing.

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Locate the country

Today's mystery shape · 21 September 2026

Today's silhouette is waiting for your best guess. Look at the outline, think about its coastline and neighbours, and see if you can place it on the map. We reveal the answer tomorrow.

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Yesterday, 20 September 2026

16.95° N, 33.75° E · By the numbers

Sudan's pyramids outnumber Egypt's

Egypt owns the pyramid brand, but its southern neighbour has more of them. Roughly 200 to 255 Nubian pyramids stand in northern Sudan, against about 118 in Egypt. The rulers of the ancient Kushite kingdoms built them over several centuries as tombs for kings, queens and wealthy citizens, at sites such as El-Kurru, Nuri, Jebel Barkal and Meroë. They adapted Egyptian designs to their own burial customs, which lasted almost a thousand years. The country most people name first has roughly half as many.