North America dwarfs Peru: about 24,710,000 km² km² against 1,296,279 km² km². At true size North America is about 19.1× larger — the whole of Peru fits into North America roughly 19 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1× vs 1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Peru fits 19× into North America.