Map of the world

[PatTheRat]

I remember being shown a map of the world a long time ago, which was supposed to be exactly (or a close as possible) to scale.

If I remember correctly, Russia looked much bigger and North America much smaller. Was this map correct. And does anyone know where I can view a similar one online?

[Quizmonster]

Click http://www.petersmap.com/ for a web-page with a Peters projection map of the earth, which is supposedly area-accurate. Perhaps that is the one you refer to, though there are thousands of projections which differ from the usual Mercator one we are all familiar with..

[landie]

The effect you speak of is caused by the spherical nature of the Earth (not trying to teach granny to suck eggs).

If you split a beach ball at the panel edges and laid it out flat you would find that you had large gaps between the tips of the panels (near the polar regions). This is the same effect as when lines of longitude are drawn and made to look parallel rather than wedge shape. The map makers exaggerate the areas near the poles to fill in the spaces.

[tomd]

Looking at a globle will give you an accurate projection of the reliative size of countries, as there is no distortion.