Both maps below show Sint Maarten highlighted. At 18° Mercator inflates Sint Maarten by only about 11%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to Bahamas beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 18°, Sint Maarten 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.
Sint Maarten: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Sint Maarten | 34 km² | 38 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 Sint Maarten at about 38 km². The truth is 34 km², a difference of 11% that school atlases carried for centuries.