Both maps below show Mali highlighted. At 17° Mercator inflates Mali by only about 10%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Western Sahara beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 17°, Mali 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.
Mali: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Mali | 1,240,192 km² | 1,360,739 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 Mali at about 1,360,739 km². The truth is 1,240,192 km², a difference of 10% that school atlases carried for centuries.