Monday, January 6, 2025

The Real Size of Greenland. Flat maps of the Earth shows Greenland larger than it really is. The farther from the equator, the bigger it looks when flattened. Here's a picture of Greenland if it were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Greenland has a population of about 55,000.

 


Still, even at actual size it's big.

19 comments:

  1. That graphic makes it appear as though Greenland is smaller in land size than Alaska, when in reality it is 50% larger. But with < 10% of the population.

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  2. Put a warning label on it like we do on auto side mirrors.

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  3. Just measured both in Google maps.
    w x t

    Alaska 800 x 500 (miles, not including the Berings)
    Greenland 750 x 1600

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  4. https://thetruesize.com , where this image was generated, is a great resource.

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  5. Mercator Distortion

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  6. "Square miles" or whatever other unit-of-area floats your boat. Projecting round things onto flat things distorts, period. Greenland:2,166,086 sq. km; Alaska, 1,723,337; USA lower 48: 8,080,470. Greenland is around 25% bigger than Alaska, or if you like it the other way around Alaska is 80% the size of Greenland, and somewhat less than 20% the current size of the 50 states. Yeah, it's worth acquiring- as long as it doesn't vote 100% Democrat. Considering that it's heavily subsidized by Denmark now, that seems likely.

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  7. If only we could move it to a more sensible latitude.

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  8. Been there once, met the Crown Prince, now King, of Denmark. Nice fellow.

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  9. Interactive map over at

    https://www.thetruesize.com/

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  10. That happens when you use the Mercator map projection.

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  11. It's a feature of the Mercator projection. The poles, instead of being a point, become lines. Any map projection has problems with distortion.

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  12. Lots of goodies there, that's why DJT wants the US to buy it. Better yet make it the 51st State. If we could extract the rare earths there we could tell China to piss off.

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  13. Meh.
    Australia has a better climate and more attractive women.
    So if we're shopping for sub-continents...

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  14. Fezzik used to live there

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  15. So why doesn’t Alaska look bigger since it is at similar latitude to much of Greenland?

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  16. My old NatGeo sea bottom map shows a giant inland bay in Greenland, so remove about 40% of the square footage.

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    Replies
    1. It's only a bay in the tropics.

      At latitude, it's just a giant sheet of ice.

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  17. Did we miss the Black Friday sale?

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