When you look at the northern most and southern most parts of your standard Mercator projection map, you see vast landmasses in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Australia and Russia.
What if I told you Alaska and its great vast frontier was actually no bigger than Colombia? If you are a visual learner, this is a neat tool. Go play this interactive map and discover the true size of many countries.
Look at Russia, which on a normal Mercator map looks like a vast bemouth. But, while still large, its true size is much less than we perceive.
Alaska:
Greenland:
