This map also suggests that Scandinavian countries are larger than India, whereas, India is actually three times the size. Whereas, in reality, Africa is almost 14 times larger, and Greenland can fit inside China no less than four times. On a Mercator projection, Greenland is roughly the same size as Africa. And you would have thought nothing of it, because it was the same map that you have grown up seeing in your classroom wall as well – the Mercator projection.īut the trouble with this map projection is that even though it preserves angles and directions in a small area (which is why it is so popular), you cannot use it for understanding the real size and shape of continents and countries. Till last week, if you had zoomed all the way out of Google Maps, you would have seen a flat map of the world. In a crushing blow to the community of so-called flat-Earthers, Google Maps has put its weight behind a spherical planet. However, since it relies on WebGL, the feature works on all major browsers, including Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.Google Maps in the new 3D Globe Mode.
The newly announced “Globe Mode” update is only available on desktop and not mobile. Thankfully, with the new Globe Mode, this should now be fixed. For instance, Greenland looks the size of Africa, when it’s much, much smaller.
As a result, a few countries look way bigger than they should. Mercator projections, which are the most commonly used means of projections, enlarges regions that are farther from the equator despite showing the correct shape of countries. To make things clear, Google is referring to the fact that it’s impossible to represent the true area of different regions on the planet using flat projections or in 2-dimension. Or as described in Google’s own words, “Greenland’s projection is no longer the size of Africa”. While you won’t notice the change when you first open the app, you can get a moon’s-eye view of our world if you zoom out far enough. As announced in an official tweet, Google Maps now shows the Earth as a globe instead of a flat “Mercator” projection as before.
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