Both maps below show Nauru highlighted. At 0° Mercator inflates Nauru by only about 0.01%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Vanuatu beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 0°, Nauru 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.
Nauru: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Nauru | 21 km² | 21 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 Nauru at about 21 km². The truth is 21 km², a difference of 0.01% that school atlases carried for centuries.