Both maps below show Kiribati highlighted. At 1° Mercator inflates Kiribati by only about 0.02%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Fiji beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 1°, Kiribati 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.
Kiribati: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Kiribati | 811 km² | 811 km² | 1.00× |
| Greenland | 2,166,086 km² | 25,576,494 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | n/a | n/a |
Old maps drew Kiribati at about 811 km². The truth is 811 km², a difference of 0.02% that school atlases carried for centuries.