How big is French Southern Lands really?
French Southern Lands covers 7,829 km² (3,020 sq mi). On the usual world map (the Mercator projection) it is drawn about 2.3 times bigger than it really is.
See French Southern Lands at its true size on the map →True size vs the map
Both drawn at the same scale. The map keeps shapes but swells everything away from the equator.
French Southern Lands in numbers
- French Southern Lands is the 170th largest of the 196 countries and territories in Globegami.
- On the map French Southern Lands looks bigger than Timor-Leste, but Timor-Leste is really 1.91 times larger.
- Countries of about the same true size: Puerto Rico (9,104 km²), Palestine (6,020 km²), Lebanon (10,452 km²).
- The United Kingdom is 31 times the size of French Southern Lands.
Why the map gets French Southern Lands wrong
French Southern Lands lies around 49°S. A Mercator map stretches distances there by about 1.53 times in every direction, so areas come out roughly 2.4 times too big near its middle. Most web maps use this projection because it keeps angles and shapes right for navigation, not because it shows sizes fairly.
In Globegami you can drag a copy of French Southern Lands anywhere on Earth: it keeps its true size and grows or shrinks on the map as it moves, and you can fold the map back into a globe.
Areas: official totals including inland water (UN Statistics Division via Wikidata). Outlines: Natural Earth. How Globegami works