Both maps below show Indian Ocean Territories highlighted. At 11° Mercator inflates Indian Ocean Territories by only about 4%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Australia beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 11°, Indian Ocean Territories 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.
Indian Ocean Territories: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Indian Ocean Territories | 142 km² | 147 km² | 1.04× |
| Greenland | 2,166,086 km² | 25,576,494 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | n/a | n/a |
Old maps drew Indian Ocean Territories at about 147 km². The truth is 142 km², a difference of 4% that school atlases carried for centuries.