Europe dwarfs Mali: about 10,180,000 km² km² against 1,258,185 km² km². At true size Europe is about 8.1× larger — the whole of Mali fits into Europe roughly 8 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1× vs 1.1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Mali fits 8× into Europe.