| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Russia | 16,879,701 km² | 102,290,988 km² | 6.1× |
| Greenland | 2,154,754 km² | 25,447,645 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | — | 1× |
Old maps drew Russia at about 102,290,988 km² km². The truth is 16,879,701 km² km² — a difference of 506%% that school atlases carried for centuries.