Central African Republic on the old map vs the new map — Mercator distortion and true size

Old map Mercator · 1569 – 2026

New map Equal Earth · 2026 – ongoing

Scroll or pinch to zoom · drag ocean to pan · drag a country to move it

factsTitle

	True area	On the old Mercator map	Distortion vs truth
Central African Republic	620,987 km²	627,197 km²	1×
Greenland	2,154,754 km²	25,447,645 km²	11.8×
Africa	30,370,000 km²	—	1×

Old maps drew Central African Republic at about 627,197 km² km². The truth is 620,987 km² km² — a difference of 1%% that school atlases carried for centuries.