If I've learned nothing else from this course, it's that Mercator sucks out loud.

Stop.  Using.  Mercator projections.  Just stop.

Because this is not getting old anytime soon, here is a great illustration that was linked on one of my very favorite sites, FlowingData.com.  Kai Krause has taken a goodly part of the world and superimposed it onto Africa, with very little overhang, just to make the point that Africa is freaking huge.  Observe.

yes, it is that large.  Click to make even larger.

By country, if you prefer.  Click to enlarge

The linked blog above, which I cropped these images out of, has a nice sidebar with actual country sizes, just in case you want to look them up.

FlowingData makes a point of showing the GoogleMaps Mercator projection to show how ridiculously inaccurate it is. I found a really lovely satellite image of Earth in standard Mercator projection (really lovely.  just like all those cheesy PSAs around Earth Day say- it is an amazingly beautiful planet.  Jersey notwithstanding.) and cut-and-pasted roughly similar-sized rectangles side-by-side of Greenland, Africa, and much of North America.  Behold.

Greenland:  "Where is your God now, mortal?"

I, for one, would like to welcome our new overlords from the far North.  Herring for everyone!

Looking at the true size of Africa, can one really wonder why all those pasty-skinned Europeans ever looked south and thought, surely they can't be using all that land, can they? * 

*Kidding, kidding, colonialism was bad.  Especially for Congo.  Damn.