Geography myths: why your world map lies

Some mistakes do not sit in your head, they sit in the map itself. Know them and you stop falling for them in quizzes, and you win every pub argument on the side.

Greenland is not as big as Africa

On the usual Mercator projection, Greenland and Africa look almost the same size. In reality Africa, at about 30 million square kilometres, is roughly fourteen times larger than Greenland's barely 2 million. The Mercator map was invented in 1569 for navigation, because on it a straight line equals a constant compass bearing. The price: it inflates everything towards the poles. Canada and Russia look enormous, the countries near the equator too small.

The capital of Switzerland is Bern

Not Zurich, not Geneva. Strictly speaking Switzerland has no legal capital at all, Bern is officially only the federal city. A related trap: the Netherlands govern from The Hague, but the constitutional capital is Amsterdam.

Holland is not the Netherlands

Holland is only two of the twelve Dutch provinces, North and South Holland. Calling the whole country Holland is a bit like calling Germany Bavaria. The Dutch government itself stopped using the nickname officially in 2020.

Africa and the Americas sit differently than you think

Most of Africa lies north of the equator, not south. And almost all of South America lies east of Florida: Santiago de Chile is further east than Miami. Statements like these sound wrong and are still true, because our mental map is distorted.

In CountryRush you work with real outlines and real positions, not the warped classroom wall map. Which is exactly why your picture of the world quietly sorts itself out as you play.