Home to six time zones, its endless plains spread from ocean to ocean, dominating great swathes of the northern half of the globe.

But, in reality, three Canadas would comfortably fit inside Africa.
Our world map is wildly misleading.
It's all down to the European cartographer Geert de Kremer, better known as Mercator, and his 16th century map projection.
While a convenient way to chart the world, the map distorts the true size of countries.

Wish I knew

The 1569 Mercator projection was made for navigating the seas -- drawing the meridians and parallels as straight lines that cross at right angles helped sailors to navigate some of the their first treacherous voyages around the world.
Mercator initially made globes. Later transferring his map from a three-dimensional curved surface to a flat sheet of paper was problematic. Taking the equator as the logical map center left big, confusing gaps near the poles.
Mercator's solution was to stretch out the northern and southern extremities of the globe to fill those gaps, producing an elegant and usable map.
While a revolutionary tool for captains and explorers, the projection distorts the relative size of the continents, to the advantage of the West.
The repercussions of this are still being felt today.
A map made by Europe for Europe
On the Mercator map, Africa -- sitting on the equator, reasonably undistorted -- is left looking much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ4mqilDpnU

The true size of Africa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rct7DL9W1Sk&t=1s