Niger dwarfs South America: about 1,185,111 km² km² against 17,840,000 km² km². At true size Niger is about 15.1× larger — the whole of South America fits into Niger roughly 15 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1.1× vs 1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Niger fits 15× into South America.