🗺️ I Built TrueSizeOfCountries.org — To Fix 200 Years of Map Distortion

Hey IndieHackers 👋

I’ve always been fascinated by maps — but one thing kept bothering me:
for more than 200 years, the Mercator projection has been lying to us.

On most world maps, Greenland looks almost as big as Africa,
but in reality, Africa is about 14 times larger.
This distortion comes from how the Mercator projection stretches land near the poles and shrinks it near the equator.
It was great for 16th-century navigation… but terrible for understanding our planet’s true scale.

So, I decided to build TrueSizeOfCountries.org —
an interactive tool that lets you drag and drop country outlines across the globe to see their real sizes.

No distortions, no bias — just facts.
You can move Russia near the equator, overlap Brazil with Europe, or compare India with the U.S. — and finally see how big (or small) each country really is.

Why I built it

• I wanted a more accurate, educational map experience

• I wanted it to be multilingual, mobile-friendly, and up to date

• And I wanted something that’s actually fun to explore

Who might like it

• Educators and students learning about geography

• Journalists and creators who need accurate visuals

• Anyone curious about how the world really looks

It’s live here 👉 TrueSizeOfCountries.org

Would love to hear your thoughts —
what would you want to see next (e.g. city overlays, population density, or 3D globe mode)? 🌍