[jsingleton]

Canada also isn't as big as you think, as hinted at in the article. It's still big though.

Try asking people which they think is bigger, Greenland or Brazil. Brazil is of course much, much bigger but projections can be deceiving if you've only looked at flat maps.

[jp555]

South Africa is about the size of Alaska, but it doesn't look like that on most flat globe-projections.

Draw a shape around SA in Google's MyMaps, and then drag that shape up to Alaska. The shape grows about 3x bigger.

[raattgift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zm6HzN5YVI

[epimetheus]

http://mapfight.appspot.com/us.ak-vs-za/alaska-us-south-afri...

[coldcode]

So what projection is better at showing the relative sizes of countries, particularly when most projections seems distort at the poles (thus making greenland and canada huge)?

[dragonwriter]

Any equal area projection (e.g., Lambert equal-area cylindrical).

[theandrewbailey]

Second-largest, longest coastline, but borders one country.

[epimetheus]

Canada has the most lakes in the world too. I recall reading that they have more lakes than the rest of the world combined.