The distortion is the result of the Mercator map which was created in 1596 to help sailors navigate the worldIt gives the right shapes of countries but at the cost of distorting sizes in favour of the wealthy lands to the northFor instance, north America looks larger, or at least as big, as Africa, and Greenland also looks of comparable sizeIn reality, you can fit north America into Africa and still have space for India, Argentina, Tunisia and some left overMap suggests Scandinavian countries are larger than India, whereas in reality India is three times the size The biggest challenge for cartographers is that it is impossible to portray reality of spherical world on a flat map
