Both maps below show Central African Republic highlighted. At 7° Mercator inflates Central African Republic by only about 1%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Chad beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 7°, Central African Republic sits in the band the old map drew almost honestly. It is one of the regions Mercator quietly under-represented, and that is exactly what the new Equal Earth map restores.
Central African Republic: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Central African Republic | 622,984 km² | 631,270 km² | 1.01× |
| Greenland | 2,166,086 km² | 25,576,494 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | n/a | n/a |
Old maps drew Central African Republic at about 631,270 km². The truth is 622,984 km², a difference of 1% that school atlases carried for centuries.