Spain is actually scaled incorrectly. The Eastern Europe countries look to be manually moved together for the graphic: there are gaps in between them, not lines, which tells me they were pieced back together again. Very curious that the same two countries are swapped in both lists in the graphic, but that’s probably because the lists originated from the same source list, so errors would propagate identically. China is cut into two parts making it look bigger within the Africa map to my eyes. For example, I don’t see Alaska or Hawaii represented as part of the US. Similarly in Iran, Facebook was also blocked first in 2009 and then intermittently since. But the Facebook wave came in earnest. The main point is surely the table on the left which that shows that Africa is bigger then you think when looking at it on a map of the world. By the end of 2018’s fiscal year, the Switch had already outsold the Wii U with 17 million units sold. Africa, which straddles the Equator, barely changes in size — meanwhile, the countries furthest from the Equator become inflated from their true sizes on this type of map. Visualizing the Human Impact on the Earth’s Surface. Image by Kai Krause, courtesy of The Economist. You may be surprised at what you find! But nobody volunteers to do an better one. Ranked: The 100 Most Spoken Languages Around the World, Basic Income Experiments Around the World, Animated Map: The Comparative Might of Continents. While the GameCube sold 21.7 million total units and the original Xbox sold ~24 million total units, the Playstation 2 dominated this generation and is still the best-selling video game console of all time with 155 million units sold. Wow, Sarah Pailin was right: Africa is one big country! By 2009, the social media giant took the title of most popular network for the bulk of the Americas, Europe, South Asia, and Oceania, with Orkut in Brazil being the sole holdout until 2011. But how large really is Africa? Half of the population live on the island of Java which is the fairly large island shown in the middle of the map (across Texas and New Mexico). As big of a footprint as Facebook has on social networking, the tech giant’s reach is magnified when factoring in mobile apps that it also owns. Spain, for example, is roughly 1/20th the area of the US per the info provided, but the map of Spain appears to be aoubt 1/8 the size of the US map. Of course I meant to say “how big Africa is”. Alaska isn’t part of the contiguous United States, which is the area represented in this graphic. However, despite the common perception that Africa is a large landmass, it’s still one that is vastly underestimated by most casual map viewers.. I would venture to say that it’s because Alaska is included with the total area value but not with the map overlay. African country borders are underneath all other countries, which really isn’t helping anything. The data was tabulated by Vincenzo Cosenza at Vincos.it by examining annual traffic data from Alexa and SimilarWeb. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. With increasing scrutiny of tech giants, the company is facing massive antitrust lawsuits in the U.S. by federal and state authorities, and other countries are stepping up potential regulation as well. If you add in Alaska as Leif suggested, that should make up for the discrepancy. Online maps that we use for directions use the Mercator projection, and this tends to dictate how we perceive the size of countries and continents. What do you think? Mapping the rapid expansion of Facebook into the world’s dominant social network, and the countries and platforms resisting its growth. Africa is No. Geographic Area (millions of square kilometers) Top 15 countries My main cartography complaint is that for something that ostensibly fights “immappancy” caused by map projections, there is no information given on the map projection used here. The population of Africa numbers 1 billion, while the North American continent is home to 528 million souls. By Stephen Luntz 04 Jan 2015, 23:57. Wikipedia says Spain is about twice the area of Oregon, 504,030 km² to 255,026 km². Oops. For those of us living in Western countries, this is an interesting dilemma to consider. The theme park will also be combining the digital and physical world, with virtual coin collecting and other prizes tracked on mobile phones, gamifying the experience for visitors. Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. While Facebook is the most popular social network in many countries, this traction didn’t happen overnight. What’s the true size of Africa? Edit: Kai Krause has contacted us to let us know that the previous headline image we used was a variation on Krause's work by … When you have a big family, it’s a challenge to figure out how everyone is related. Even though i also have to mention that Scandinavia is a quite large part of Europe that has been cut out.. In the images of the US and China, it almost seems to be the African country boundaries, but the E. European image seems to have European boundaries…. Edit: Kai Krause has contacted us to let us know that the previous headline image we used was a … In area, it spans 11.6 million square miles (30 million square kilometers). Although a quick scan shows the other ties are properly sorted. By the way most political maps do qualify this fact and in most cases include a scale of the levels of northern exaggeration (normally located in next to the legend or scale). Yeah, I see what you mean. So here is the true size of Africa, distortion-free. Nice map but not entirely accurate. (The 0.30% is a good example.) The story was similar in Africa, as increasing internet traffic data pointed to Facebook dominating the social network landscape across the continent (minus a temporary LinkedIn surge in 2017 for Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Cameroon). Kai Krause’s map, “The True Size of Africa.” Africa looks about the same size as Greenland in a Mercator projection, even though it is actually 14 times bigger; Krause’s map illustrates the fact that Africa is three times larger than the USA and larger than the USA, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe – … That means that 40% of Earth’s population (7.8 billion in December 2020) uses Facebook-owned social media.   Along with Asia, these two continents are forecast to be the highest areas of world population growth in the coming decades. To open our eyes to this distortion, Kai Krause, the famous graphical user interface designer, created a map called “The True Size of Africa” which shows how many countries the continent can contain, and it is mind-boggling.Africa is bigger than “the entirety of the USA, all of China, India, as well as Japan and pretty much all of Europe as well — all combined!,” explains Krause. Pingback: The vast majority of us aren’t using paper maps to chart our course across the ocean anymore, so critics of the Mercator projection argue that the continued use of this style of map gives users a warped sense of the true size of countries – particularly in the case of the African continent. Kai Krause scales countries by their area in square kilometers and then fits them into a Africa’s borders for some perspective. Google’s Orkut was the most popular network in Brazil and India, and Friendster found a foothold in Southeast Asia. In fact, the continent is 14 times larger than the island. The vast majority of us aren’t using paper maps to chart our course across the ocean anymore, so critics of the Mercator projection argue that the continued use of this style of map gives users a warped sense of the true size of countries – particularly in the case of the African continent. Since its 2017 release, the Nintendo Switch has become a household game console for gamers and non-gamers alike. The True Size map points out that Mercator projections suggest that Greenland is about half the size of Africa, for example. Nintendo has a long and storied history in gaming—but since the release of the original Game Boy in 1989, the company has favored a two-pronged approach with its game consoles: having both a portable handheld console and a home console which connects to a TV on the market. Visit the best American breweries of 2018, based on RateBeer rankings, while minimizing travel time and distance. Still like the effort and idea. The true size of Africa. The classic example, also used in The West Wing scene, is Greenland: on a Mercator world map, it appears roughly the same size as Africa. This means that the sizes of European and North American countries are distorted, giving us an inaccurate mental “measuring stick” for judging the relative sizes of other countries. If you look at the world map on Google, for example, Africa doesn’t look that much bigger compared to China or the United States. While developers previously flocked to create games for the Wii’s motion controls, the Wii U’s tablet controller didn’t attract the same kind of innovative software development. To see Facebook’s path to domination, we mapped each country’s most popular social network from 2008‒2020. Support an independent site. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. Maps of Africa. Become a member. The success of the Nintendo Switch has brought on more experimentation and fresh ideas from the company, and the COVID-19 pandemic made it an essential product of 2020. Animating the Mercator projection to the true size of each country in relation to all the others. Australia? El Verdadero Tamaño de Africa « La Valija, Pingback: Pingback: Today’s infographic comes from Kai Krause and it shows the true size of Africa, as revealed by the borders of the countries that can fit within the continent’s shape. Another largely invisible continent. The Wii U’s weak sales brought about one of Nintendo’s worst periods ever in recent history, with two unprofitable years for the company in 2012 and 2014. Animating the Mercator projection to the true size of each country in relation to all the others. Click here for a larger, zoomable version, courtesy of The Economist. Did You Know? Thank you for an interesting comparison. Based on what has been published by cartographers, the continent is shown to be smaller in favour of other places on earth. Finally, it’s time to look at the other side: divorce and remarriage. Kai Krause. The Nintendo Switch came just in time in 2017 as the Wii U’s sales dried up, and the new hybrid home and portable console was an instant success. It stretches for over 3,000 miles between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and separates Asia from Australia. This graphic visualizes the Nintendo Switch sales success story alongside more than 20 years of Nintendo console sales. I pulled up Google Earth to compare the distances of certain features on each country and found that while the U.S. is sized about right where as Spain is ≈1.26 as long as it should be or ≈1.56 times its proper area. These successes proved that the gaming audience would support two separate Nintendo consoles on the market, and Nintendo kept the strategy going the following generations. The whole “Africa’s a continent” thing seems to be missing the point of the illustration (and it is just an illustration) that Africa is bigger than it appears on maps. Alaska. As Sony and Microsoft pushed HD rendering and higher graphical fidelity in their next generation of consoles, Nintendo focused on how games were played rather than raw power. This graphic explores 20 years of Nintendo console sales and the success of the Nintendo Switch. Online maps that we use for directions use the Mercator projection, and this tends to dictate how we perceive the size of countries and continents. Image by Kai Krause, courtesy of The Economist. Africa, which straddles the Equator, barely changes in size — meanwhile, the countries furthest from the Equator become inflated from their true sizes on this type of map. The Nintendo DS’s touch screen permeated many Nintendo consoles and is still present in the Switch, and looking back at the Wii U’s tablet controller, it now seems like an early prototype for the Switch’s free-form portability. Realizing the true size of Africa also helps us appreciate how daunting it may be to solve Africa’s poverty and food challenges. Once place that is often skewed is Africa; it generally appears much smaller on maps than it is in real life. Nice gesture to show how big Europe is but ouch, that is glaring oversight. If you look at the world map on Google, for example, Africa doesn’t look that much bigger compared to China or the United States. This Is The True Size Of Africa. Which Countries are Mapping the Ocean Floor? In 2018, the company released Nintendo Labo, a custom cardboard building set which integrates with the Switch and its Joy-Cons for a variety of games and experiences. Based on what has been published by cartographers, the continent is shown to be smaller in favour of other places on earth. Before 2008, the social network landscape was populated by social network pioneers such as Myspace and Hi5. On that map Europe is still too big compared to the US. It sounds like you’ve looked solely (or at least primarily) at a Mercator projection map. In a bid to fight “immappancy” and chronic misjudgement of Africa’s true scale, software and computer – graphics guru Kai Krause created a public domain image that illustrates the truth. Answer: The best answer to the request: Choose the statement that is true, would be: In 1492, Europeans did not know the actual size of the world. This has implications not only for Africa, but for the whole Southern Hemisphere: South America, India, the Middle East, and even Australia are “bigger” than they may initially appear on a map. At about 30.3 million km 2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area. Editor’s note: The above table is slightly different from the countries shown in the visualization, which focuses more on fitting recognizable country shapes into the geographical shape of Africa. Instead, Iran’s most popular social networks have been Persian sites Cloob and Facenama between 2009‒2016. While showing the true size of things is a noble goal, these sort of errors really take away from this work. A great tool for educators. This one’s for you, cartographers. The author has produced an updated version with the explanation: http://twitpic.com/2xu4ou/full Did 2020 mark the height of Facebook’s global empire, or is it just another milestone on the path towards further domination? If China has less land mass (given in the image) than the United States why does the author place it as number 3? Is Greenland really as big as all of Africa? Another “immappable” country: Indonesia. http://www.kswmyy.com/alaskamap.htm, Pingback: Many of the Wii Remote’s abilities are still present in the Switch’s Joy-Cons, with built-in accelerometers and gyroscopes for motion controls, along with the ability to rotate them sideways for a more classic controller configuration. 2 on both lists: population and size. From just a few thousand users in 2004 to 2.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs) in 2020, Facebook is by far the world’s largest social network. Even fewer come together as a complete package that ties together the ideologies and technical ideas of their preceding consoles like the Nintendo Switch has. Share on Twitter. Kai Krause’s map, “The True Size of Africa.” Africa looks about the same size as Greenland in a Mercator projection, even though it is actually 14 times bigger; Krause’s map illustrates the fact that Africa is three times larger than the USA and larger than the USA, China, India, Japan, and all of Europe – combined! Using the animation below, you’ll see that Africa is actually the most accurately sized continent using the common Mercator map projection: The Mercator projection attempts to place the spherical shape of the world onto a cylinder, causing areas closest to the poles to be “stretched”. My first guess is that the list is sorted by “%” and not “AREA”. A more realistic perspective of country sizes, Great Data Visualisation: True Size of Africa « Musings on Interesting Things, A Petty Blog » Africa: Bigger than You Think, One Billion People and One Stereotype | Thought Clusters, http://www.sunda.org/assets/indoamermap.gif, True Size of Africa - JOTA/JOTI Follow up | Jabbering All Day Long, Combating Immapancy, One Map at a Time « Hands Wide Open, El Verdadero Tamaño de Africa « La Valija, » El Verdadero Tamaño de Africa Té Forastero, True size of Africa – Infoviz project « CS450. The BRICKS need to step up their act and push for a more balanced world in voice and it starts with correcting wrong perceptions such as those perpetuated by political maps. Geographic Area (millions of square kilometers) Top 15 countries I think those borders shouldn’t have been included since the graphic is supposed to be showing how many non-African countries can fit inside the continent of Africa when jammed together. Great Data Visualisation: True Size of Africa « Musings on Interesting Things. Africa is without a doubt a large continent. Africa. While Nintendo’s development team can prepare for their next console with a bit more financial breathing room thanks to the Switch’s superb sales, the company has been working hard to broaden its audience. But how large really is Africa? by Tony 1 jaar ago 1 jaar ago. The map doesn’t include Alaska, which is a significant part of the United States’ land area. The True Size of Africa A small contribution in the fight against rampant Immappancy, by Kai Krause ITALY GERMANY FRANCE SPAIN EASTERN EUROPE INDIA CHINA UNITED STATES ( with Alaska & Hawaii ) UK JAPAN CHINA PART 2 INDIA PART 2 PORTUGAL BELGIUM … See this map for full details.. By Anne Taylor 13 September 2013. Interestingly, the problem with maps is not that Africa is sized incorrectly. The physical toys for younger audiences help capture a new generation of Nintendo fans, while older generations of fans will be excited to visit Super Nintendo World and indulge in nostalgia while introducing Nintendo to their children. The Mercator projection has some real advantages, especially for navigation. The True Size of Africa. [True Size of Africa via Good | Thanks, Cay], Pingback: China’s most popular social networking website has been Tencent’s Qzone since the mid-2000s. In reality though, it’s a lot bigger. Video comparing the Mercator projection of 1596 with the Gall-Peters projection of 1974. Mapped: Which Countries Have the Worst Air Pollution? 914 views-1. 3 | Side Culture. By Facebook’s own estimates in its Q3 2020 reporting, its core products are used by more than 3.2 billion people every month. At the same time, Sony had tried to replicate Nintendo’s strategy with handheld consoles of their own, the PSP (2004) and PS Vita (2011), and while they sold 80 million units and ~10-15 million units respectively, Sony ultimately abandoned the handheld console market. The continent is bigger than the … China’s area is between 9,596,961–9,640,011 — a different large enough to switch place with United States. Can anyone tell what the internal boundaries in the different non-African countries are supposed to represent? However, despite the common perception that Africa is a large landmass, it’s still one that is vastly underestimated by most casual map viewers. Yes, that’s right. Today, it was the true size of Africa.. It is there in number. With many families at home due to lockdowns, being able to slide the console out of its dock and off the TV to play in handheld mode has been a game-changer. The 2020 release of Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit pushed this further, with players able to build a Mario Kart circuit in their home to race physical karts controlled by the Switch. Pingback: Few consoles penetrate the mainstream deeply enough to have parents referring to a console by its proper name, instead of their children’s “Gameboy” or “Wii”. Pingback: Precious Metal Production in the COVID-19 Era. “Of course, you know Africa is a continent, right, so why would it be news that many ‘major’ countries in the world are smaller in area? As the Nintendo Switch’s excellent game library continues to expand, new and old fans alike will be excited to see what consoles, games, and other products come next from the legendary game company. However, Africa is indeed larger than a couple of continents put together. Every nation claims Africa as their own. The image is just there for illustration purposes so the scale is off and countries are missing. So if you remove Alaska, the United States does indeed look smaller, even if the overall number is larger. Have you ever looked at a map of the world and wondered how big some countries are and how tiny some other countries are? It’s in the details of 100,000 moments. The next generation made up of the Game Boy Advance (2001) and Nintendo GameCube (2001) saw slightly lower sales numbers, but was competing against Microsoft’s gaming debut with the original Xbox (2001) and Sony’s incredibly popular Playstation 2 (2000). This attempt to illuminate inaccurate perceptions of country size perpetuates the problem but using what appear to be different scales for the countries filling in the African outline. Africa is much bigger than you think. The thick black border is equivalent to a jar that holds jellybeans. And in the tables China is just smaller than the US (and Wolfram Alpha agrees with these area), but given third place instead of forth. Please try again later. The issue here is that of political vs geographical mapping. The reason for this is that the familiar Mercator map projection tends to distort our geographical view of the world in a crucial way — one that often leads to misconceptions about the relative sizes of both countries and continents. What’s the point?”. Kai Krause The True Size of Africa A few years back there was an exhibition in a London gallery by the Royal Geographic Society , and the curator asked the edge.org group to contribute “unusual maps”. Traditional maps have downplayed the size of the continent in comparison to other parts of the world for hundreds of years. While mobile phones were feared to be a portable console killer, the Nintendo 3DS sold well when it released in 2011 (75.94 million units) and was Nintendo’s saving grace for its generation. That is weird…. It sounds like you’ve looked solely (or at least primarily) at a Mercator projection map. 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The True Size Of Africa Map. We know who never marries. Take a look at these true size maps that compare the actual, real size of different parts of the world. I suspect that that’s the source of the error. Nintendo was clearly the king of the handheld console market. This brought about the Nintendo DS (2004), which added a second touch screen for developers to build games around, and the Nintendo Wii (2006), which pioneered motion controls and accessibility with the simpler Wii Remote controller. True Size of Africa - JOTA/JOTI Follow up | Jabbering All Day Long, I showed this map to a colleague, who became annoyed. You ever wonder why civil wars never end in Africa? I know that because Brazil is bigger than USA if not counting Alaska. If you look at the world map on Google, for example, Africa doesn’t look that much bigger compared to China or the United States. Visualizing the Biggest Threats to Earth’s Biodiversity, Decoding U.S. Election Day in 9 Key Charts, Animated Map: U.S. Presidential Voting History by State (1976-2016), Charting America’s Debt: $27 Trillion and Counting. While the Nintendo Switch sales success story came largely from how it unified home and handheld gaming, the console brought to fruition many of Nintendo’s strategies and technical decisions over the generations. Facebook did manage to capture the #1 spot briefly in 2011, but since then, they’ve been displaced by Facebook-owned Instagram. Presumably yes, but it would be good to note. And in other places, it still hasn’t quite taken off. Make great charts. Precious Metals Production, Volatile Returns: Commodity Investing Through Miners and Explorers, The World’s Gold and Silver Coin Production vs. Money Creation, Visualizing U.S. Money Supply vs. Although I live on the continent, I am one of the millions who don’t understand just how big it really is. Copyright © 2007-Present FlowingData. Something went wrong. Nice graphic! The Game Boy’s variants like the Game Boy Pocket (1996) and Game Boy Color (1998) lengthened the handheld’s lifespan enough to accompany another home console, with the Nintendo 64 coming out in 1996 and selling 32.93 million units of its own. Take a look at these true size maps that compare the actual, real size of different parts of the world. Every day, I learn something new from the Internet. Is it an equal area projection? Given email address is already subscribed, thank you! Drag and drop countries around the map to compare their relative size. 2 on both lists: population and size. The console only reached 13.56 million lifetime sales, and was quickly overshadowed by the Playstation 4 (113.5 million units sold) and Xbox One (~51 million units sold) releases in 2013. Mapped: The True Size of Africa. So here are some charts to help you figure it out. The African continent has a land area of 30.37 million sq km (11.7 million sq mi) — enough to fit in the U.S., China, India, Japan, Mexico, and many European nations, combined. So here is the true size of Africa, distortion-free. Explanation: It must be remembered that before Columbus discovered the Americas, for Europe the world was comprised of: Europe itself, Northern Africa, and Asia.