Both maps below show Samoa highlighted. At 14° Mercator inflates Samoa by only about 6%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to New Caledonia beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 14°, Samoa 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.
Samoa: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Samoa | 2,842 km² | 3,012 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 Samoa at about 3,012 km². The truth is 2,842 km², a difference of 6% that school atlases carried for centuries.