Both maps below show French Polynesia highlighted. At 15° Mercator inflates French Polynesia by only about 7%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Cook Islands beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 15°, French Polynesia 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.
French Polynesia: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| French Polynesia | 4,167 km² | 4,455 km² | 1.1× |
| Greenland | 2,166,086 km² | 25,576,494 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | n/a | n/a |
Old maps drew French Polynesia at about 4,455 km². The truth is 4,167 km², a difference of 7% that school atlases carried for centuries.