Why Canada Looks Bigger Than It Really Is

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The full episode is on YouTube, about ten minutes long.

Updated: November 14, 2026

Take a look at the map on your classroom wall. Canada is up there, sprawled across the top of North America, looking enormous. It looks bigger than Africa, bigger than everything except Russia and the oceans. Canada is the second biggest country on Earth, and it really is enormous. Still, that map is lying to you, and today we are going to catch it red handed.

Here is Canada at its true size. Nine point nine eight million square kilometres of land and water, about seven percent of all the land on Earth. Only Russia is bigger, at about seventeen point one million. Europe, all of it, comes to ten point one eight million, so Canada is just a touch smaller than the whole of Europe. The United States is nine point eight three million, and China is nine point six. Canada is big. The map is just making it bigger still.

The surprise, in numbers

Now watch Africa, at its true size. Thirty point three seven million square kilometres. Africa is about three times the size of Canada. Here is Canada, and here is the United States. They fit inside Africa with room to spare. Now add Europe. Canada, the United States and Europe together come to just under thirty million square kilometres, and they still fit inside Africa. Keep that picture in your head, because the map on your classroom wall tells a very different story.

Canada and the United States are almost the same size. Canada covers nine point nine eight million square kilometres, the United States nine point eight three, so Canada is only about one and a half percent bigger. On the classroom map, though, Canada looks more than twice the size of the United States. The border between them runs eight thousand eight hundred ninety-one kilometres, the longest border between any two countries. About ninety percent of Canadians live within one hundred sixty kilometres of that border. Almost everybody lives in a thin strip along the bottom of it. Point Pelee, in Ontario, sits further south than thirteen American states.

The honest map

The liar is this man, Gerardus Mercator, and his map from 1569. Mercator drew a map for sailors. It kept shapes true and it turned compass courses into straight lines. It did one thing badly. It stretched everything out of shape as you move away from the equator, and Canada sits further from the equator than almost any country on Earth. The map does not invent Canada. It just inflates it.

Here is the price Canada pays. On a Mercator map, every place is stretched by a factor that depends on its latitude. At the equator, the factor is one, no stretch at all. At fifty degrees north, it is about two point four times. At sixty degrees, four times. At seventy degrees, about eight and a half times. At eighty degrees, about thirty-three times. Ottawa sits at about forty-five degrees north, so the map draws it about twice too big. Yellowknife, at about sixty-two degrees, is drawn about four and a half times too big. That is the Mercator tax, and Canada pays more of it than almost any country on Earth.

A country of distances

The Trans-Canada Highway runs seven thousand eight hundred twenty-one kilometres from Victoria in British Columbia to St. John's in Newfoundland, the longest national highway in the world, and it runs through all ten provinces. It opened in 1962. Driving the whole thing, without stopping, would take more than three full days behind the wheel. East to west, the country measures five thousand five hundred fourteen kilometres. North to south, four thousand six hundred thirty-four. It touches three oceans, and it reaches within eight hundred kilometres of the North Pole.

A young country with an old name

Canada comes from kanata, a Huron-Iroquois word for a village or settlement, which Jacques Cartier heard in 1535. The country itself is young. Four provinces joined together on July first, 1867. In 1885, the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven home at Craigellachie, in British Columbia. Nunavut, the newest territory, was created in 1999. A name from 1535, and a newest territory from 1999.

No perfect map

Every flat map lies about something. Mercator is the map for directions, and it keeps shapes true, which is why sailors loved it. Gall-Peters is the map for area, and it keeps sizes true, though it squashes shapes. Equal Earth, from 2018, is the map that tries to keep the whole picture honest. Canada on a Mercator map looks about one and a half times the size of Africa. On an equal area map, it is nine point nine eight million square kilometres, second biggest in the world, and Africa is still three times bigger. The country did not shrink. Your eyes were just fooled. Canada is enormous. It just is not as enormous as the map pretends.