Northern Mariana Islands on the old map vs the new map — Mercator distortion and true size

Old map Mercator · 1569 – 2026

New map Equal Earth · 2026 – ongoing

Scroll or pinch to zoom · drag ocean to pan · drag a country to move it

factsTitle

	True area	On the old Mercator map	Distortion vs truth
Northern Mariana Islands	395 km²	427 km²	1.1×
Greenland	2,154,754 km²	25,447,645 km²	11.8×
Africa	30,370,000 km²	—	1×

Old maps drew Northern Mariana Islands at about 427 km² km². The truth is 395 km² km² — a difference of 8%% that school atlases carried for centuries.