Why Does Mexico Look Smaller Than Alaska?

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

Updated: November 14, 2026

Look at the map on your classroom wall, and find Alaska. It sits at the top, huge and sprawling, bigger than Mexico, bigger than almost everything. Now find Mexico, tucked under the United States, looking like a modest strip of land between two oceans. The map is telling you that Alaska is the big one and Mexico is the small one. The ground says the opposite. Mexico is bigger than Alaska, and today we are going to catch the map in the act.

Here are the real numbers, and the small print matters. Mexico covers about one point nine six million square kilometres in total, and about one point nine four million of that is land. Alaska covers about one point seven two million square kilometres in total, and about one point four eight million of that is land. Count everything, land and water together, and Mexico is only about one point one four times the size of Alaska. Count land alone, and Mexico is about one point three one times the size of Alaska. Either way you count it, Mexico wins. The map just makes it look like it loses.

The surprise, in numbers

Watch them at true size. Here is Mexico, and here is Alaska, drawn to the same scale. Mexico covers Alaska with room to spare. Now here is Texas, the biggest state in the lower forty-eight. Mexico is a little less than three times the size of Texas. Alaska, counting everything, is about two and a half times the size of Texas. Lay Alaska's dry land over Mexico's dry land and you still have room left over, about four hundred sixty thousand square kilometres of it, more than the whole of California.

The honest map

The liar is this man, Gerardus Mercator, and his map from fifteen sixty-nine. 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 Alaska sits far from the equator while Mexico sits close to it. The map does not invent Alaska. It just inflates it, and it leaves Mexico almost alone.

Here is the price each place 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. In southern Mexico, near fifteen degrees north, it is about one point zero seven times. In Mexico City, near nineteen degrees, about one point one two times. In northern Mexico, near thirty-three degrees, about one point four times. The Aleutian Islands, near fifty-one degrees, are drawn about two and a half times too big. Anchorage, near sixty-one degrees, about four times. Point Barrow, near seventy-one degrees, more than nine times. Mexico pays a small tax. Alaska pays a fortune.

Mexico used to be bigger still

Mexico has been big for a long time, and it used to be bigger. The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was founded in thirteen twenty-five, on an island in a lake, where legend says an eagle perched on a cactus. That eagle still sits on the Mexican flag. Spanish forces took the city in fifteen twenty-one. Mexico declared independence in eighteen ten. Then, in eighteen forty-eight, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and gave up about fifty-five percent of the territory it claimed, land that is California, Nevada, and Utah today. Before that treaty, the territory Mexico claimed was more than twice the size of the country today.

Look at what that treaty gave away. The Mexican Cession, about one point three six million square kilometres, is almost as big as Alaska itself. Add Texas, which Mexico had already lost, and the land that slipped away in those years comes to about two point zero six million square kilometres, more than the whole of Mexico today. Mexico lost a country the size of itself, and still ended up bigger than Alaska. The map shrinks Mexico twice over, once with latitude, and once with history.

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 twenty eighteen, is the map that tries to keep the whole picture honest. On a Mercator map, Alaska looks about three and a half times the size of Mexico. On an equal area map, Mexico is bigger, by land about one point three one times. The countries did not change size. Your eyes were just fooled.

Let us keep the real numbers. Mexico, one point nine six million square kilometres in total, one point nine four million of land. Alaska, one point seven two million in total, one point four eight million of land. By land, Mexico is about one point three one times the size of Alaska. Mexico holds about one hundred thirty-one million people. Alaska holds about seven hundred thirty-seven thousand. Mexico is bigger. It just does not look it on the wall.