Inside the question engineOpen the field notes
Country pairs are matched by real surface area. Outlines are fitted into similar frames, so the drawing size does not reveal the answer.
The real size quiz: how it works
This quiz tests whether you can judge the true size of countries without help from the map. Every outline is fitted into a frame of similar size, so the drawing does not give the answer away. What counts is your sense of real area, which the Mercator map often distorts.
How does the quiz pick the pairs of countries?
Each round has 10 questions. Pairs are drawn from 199 countries and territories that have verified data and an outline on the map. The area gap between the answers shrinks at each stage: from 50% to 150% in the first questions to only 2% to 8% in the last ones.
Where does the data on country areas come from?
Total area comes from the World Bank (FAO data) and the UN Demographic Yearbook 2024. Country outlines come from Natural Earth data at a 1:50m scale.
A fact: Congo or Greenland?
The Democratic Republic of the Congo covers 2,345,410 km² and Greenland 2,166,086 km². Congo is therefore larger, yet on a Mercator map Greenland looks about 11 times larger.
Frequently asked questions
Why do countries near the poles look bigger on a Mercator map?
The scale of this map grows with latitude, and areas grow with the square of that scale. Compared with the equator, areas look about 2 times larger at 45° latitude, about 4 times larger at 60° and about 9 times larger at 70°.
What is the difference between total area and land area?
Total area also includes inland waters such as lakes and large rivers, while land area leaves them out. This quiz compares total area. Example: Canada has 9,984,670 km² of total area against 8,788,700 km² of land area.
Does the quiz include territories, not just independent states?
Yes. The pool also holds territories with verified data and an outline on the map, for example Greenland at 2,166,086 km².