The Mercator projection, created by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, is a cylindrical map projection. It preserves angles, which is crucial for navigation.
However, this comes at the expense of distorting landmass sizes, especially near the poles. Greenland appears almost as large as Africa on a Mercator map.
In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland. The projection stretches landmasses as they move away from the equator.
At latitudes above 70 degrees north or south, the scale becomes infinitely large, making the projection unusable for polar regions. The Mercator projection was designed for maritime navigation, where preserving angles was key, and it was widely adopted in the 18th century.
Alternative projections like the Gall-Peters projection offer a more accurate representation of landmass sizes. Understanding these distortions is important for interpreting maps and understanding the true scale of the planet.