Maps and continental history. Explore a changing Earth
From map distortion to ancient supercontinents and possible Earth futures. Read the explanations, check the sources and compare arrangements on interactive maps.
Editor's selection
Three reads that best explain the idea behind RealSize.World.
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Pangaea: how a supercontinent formed and broke up
What assembled into Pangaea, how do we reconstruct it, and why did it break apart? Explore geological evidence and follow its pieces on the drift map.
Gondwana: the shared past of southern continents
Gondwana existed before Pangaea. Discover how it linked Africa, South America, India, Australia and Antarctica, and what survives from its breakup.
Rodinia: a supercontinent a billion years ago
How do we reconstruct Rodinia, and why do its maps differ? Explore ancient collisions, Laurentia's role and the limits of billion-year-old geography.
Nuna: a supercontinent older than Rodinia
What was Nuna, also known as Columbia? Explore evidence for its assembly, competing reconstructions and the role of ancient cratons in continental history.
Laurasia: Pangaea's northern continental assembly
Laurasia, Laurentia and Laurussia were different landmasses. Explore the northern part of Pangaea, its older components and its changing Atlantic links.
Laurentia: the ancient core of North America
Laurentia connects the histories of North America, Greenland and parts of Scotland. Explore its journey, the Iapetus Ocean and its difference from Laurasia.
Baltica: an ancient continent beneath Europe
Baltica was an ancient continent, not the Baltic Sea. Explore its journey towards Laurentia and Avalonia and its geological connections to northeastern Poland.
Siberia: a continent before it joined Asia
Ancient Siberia was not all of Russia. Explore the Siberian Craton's independent history, its continental journey and evidence preserved in magnetic rocks.
Avalonia: a small landmass between great continents
How did Avalonia travel from Gondwana's margin to Laurussia? Explore this ancient microcontinent and its traces on both sides of today's Atlantic.
Pangaea Ultima: could the Atlantic close?
Pangaea Ultima explores a reunion of the Americas, Africa and Eurasia. Discover its assumptions, the role of subduction and the limits of predicting Earth.
Novopangea: a future after the Pacific closes
Novopangea brings the Americas towards land across the Pacific. Explore the model's assumptions and why it is more than a forecast extrapolated from GPS.
Aurica: two closing oceans and a new one
Aurica closes the Atlantic and Pacific while opening a new ocean through Asia. Explore the scenario's mechanism, assumptions and use in climate research.
Amasia: a possible northern supercontinent
Polar Amasia gathers most continents in the north while Antarctica stays separate. Explore the hypothesis and another scientific use of the name Amasia.
A world map centered on Australia
Place Australia, Russia, Italy or South Africa at the center of a flat world map. Explore two centering modes and what Equal Earth and Mercator preserve.
Why all maps of the world lie
Find out why a 3D sphere cannot be perfectly projected onto a flat map. An explanation of Gauss's theorem and Mercator's distortions.
How Giant is Africa? The shrunken continent
The USA, China, India, Japan and most of Europe would fit inside Africa's borders together. See it at true scale.
The Greenland Illusion: Why the icy island is not a continent
On the Mercator map Greenland looks as large as Africa, yet Africa is about 14 times larger. See where the illusion comes from.
The Projection War: Mercator vs Gall-Peters and the search for fairness
The political and educational debate surrounding map projections. Why do Gall-Peters advocates accuse Mercator of Eurocentrism, and how does it affect schools?
The Equal Earth Projection: A modern answer to map distortion
The story behind the creation of the Equal Earth projection in 2018. See how cartographers designed a modern, equal-area, and visually pleasing world map.
Why Airlines Fly in Arcs? Great circle vs rhumb line
Explaining why flights from Europe to the USA travel in arcs near the Arctic Circle. Discover geodesics and the shortest paths on a globe.
10 Giant Countries that are actually much smaller
A list of 10 nations at high latitudes that look significantly larger on flat maps than their actual land area would dictate.
The Orange Peel Dilemma: Why flat maps are always a compromise
A simple, intuitive explanation of Gauss's theorem. Why you cannot flatten a 3D sphere without tearing it, and what it means for global mapping.
Exotic Projections: Peirce, Berghaus and beyond
Explore unusual projections: Peirce quincuncial, the Berghaus star, August epicycloidal and the orthographic globe. Flattening the world differently.
Should Google Maps Use a 3D Globe? Evolution of web maps
How web maps evolved from a flat Web Mercator view to interactive 3D globes on smartphones, and why it is critical for geodesy.
Great circle vs rhumb line: why the shortest route looks longer
The great circle is the shortest path on a globe, the rhumb line a route of constant bearing. We explain why planes fly along a curve and how to check it.
Atlas of error: how to read map distortion
A practical guide to Tissot's indicatrices, area and angular isocoles, the true-north field, major parallels, and ocean currents.
Gnomonic vs Mercator: which straight line is shortest?
Two maps, two straight lines, and two different questions: shortest route versus constant compass bearing.
Where is the center of the world? The UN map explained
How the azimuthal equidistant projection works and why Antarctica can become a ring.
Why do cartographers cut the world like an orange peel?
The Interrupted Goode Homolosine shows why a visible seam can be more honest than stretching.
How humanity measured the shape of Earth
From the stick of Eratosthenes to satellites: two millennia of measurements that pinned down the shape and size of Earth, long before photos from space.
Do not take an article at face value. Test the map.
Move countries, change projections, and enable distortion layers in the main RealSize.World lab.