As we grow up, we realize that some things we’ve learned in school as kids aren’t exactly accurate. For example, we’re taught we only have five senses, but we actually have around 20 (including balance, temperature, and pain). The same can be said about something in geography class: we think we know what a world map looks like, but is our knowledge accurate?
One woman on TikTok recently reminded us that it’s not. She compared the true size of the African continent with what we usually see in our maps. Turns out, they’re wildly inaccurate, and her video soon went viral as people started questioning what’s the reason for these inaccurate maps and whether that reason could be political.
We think that the world map that we know accurately represents the size of countries and continents
Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels (not the actual photo)
But one woman exposed that Africa is often depicted as way smaller than it actually is
Image credits: vankovajaja
Image credits: vankovajaja
Image credits: vankovajaja
Image credits: vankovajaja
Image credits: US Government
These are the accurate sizes of countries compared to what is depicted in most world maps
Image credits: engaging-data.com
This is the true size of Russia compared to Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
This is what the USA would look like inside Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
Australia would also nicely fit into the northern region of Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
China could almost fit inside the continent of Africa as well
Image credits: thetruesize
Entire Europe actually looks ridiculously tiny next to Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
This is the true size of the South American continent
Image credits: thetruesize
This is how the entire continent of North America would look next to Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
This is the entire continent of Asia compared to Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
That’s how Antarctica would look next to Africa
Image credits: thetruesize
The viral video garnered more than 4.7 million views
Some commenters offered explanations for why the world map is inaccurate; others started questioning what else they know is wrong
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