| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
| Iceland | 101,161 km² | 566,502 km² | 5.6× |
| Greenland | 2,154,754 km² | 25,447,645 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | — | 1× |
Old maps drew Iceland at about 566,502 km² km². The truth is 101,161 km² km² — a difference of 460%% that school atlases carried for centuries.