Libya dwarfs South America: about 1,626,369 km² km² against 17,840,000 km² km². At true size Libya is about 11× larger — the whole of South America fits into Libya roughly 10 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1.3× vs 1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Libya fits 10× into South America.