Both maps below show Mauritania highlighted. At 20° Mercator inflates Mauritania by only about 14%, 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 20°, Mauritania 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.
Mauritania: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Mauritania | 1,030,700 km² | 1,170,566 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 Mauritania at about 1,170,566 km². The truth is 1,030,700 km², a difference of 14% that school atlases carried for centuries.