| True area | On the old Mercator map | Distortion vs truth |
|---|
| Uruguay | 177,569 km² | 252,148 km² | 1.4× |
| Greenland | 2,154,754 km² | 25,447,645 km² | 11.8× |
| Africa | 30,370,000 km² | — | 1× |
Old maps drew Uruguay at about 252,148 km² km². The truth is 177,569 km² km² — a difference of 42%% that school atlases carried for centuries.