Both maps below show Sri Lanka highlighted. At 8° Mercator inflates Sri Lanka by only about 2%, so the two maps largely agree on it. Watch what the old map does to India beside it. That contrast is why the new world map matters.
At 8°, Sri Lanka 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.
Sri Lanka: key figures
| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Sri Lanka | 67,240 km² | 68,444 km² | 1.02× |
| Greenland | 2,166,086 km² | 25,576,494 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | n/a | n/a |
Old maps drew Sri Lanka at about 68,444 km². The truth is 67,240 km², a difference of 2% that school atlases carried for centuries.