Africa, which spans the equator, fares particularly badly on these sorts of projections: Krause says, "Africa is so mind-numbingly immense, that it exceeds the common assumptions by just about anyone I ever met: it contains the entirety of the USA, all of China, India, as well as Japan and pretty much all of Europe as well - all combined!”
Some have argued that since people associate size with importance this encourages the already strong tendency of the world's wealthiest nations to disregard those who live in the tropics.