Both maps below show Oman highlighted. At 21° Mercator inflates Oman by only about 14%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to United Arab Emirates beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 21°, Oman 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.
Oman: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Oman | 309,500 km² | 353,170 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 Oman at about 353,170 km². The truth is 309,500 km², a difference of 14% that school atlases carried for centuries.