Both maps below show Mauritius highlighted. At 20° Mercator inflates Mauritius by only about 14%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Eswatini beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 20°, Mauritius 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.
Mauritius: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Mauritius | 2,096 km² | 2,382 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 Mauritius at about 2,382 km². The truth is 2,096 km², a difference of 14% that school atlases carried for centuries.