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How Many Countries Fit In Africa? Visualizing The Continent's True Size Africa is vast. So vast that its full scale can be hard to grasp by looking at most world maps. The graphic below, via Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao, solves this by combining individual countries inside the continent’s area, showing that Africa’s landmass is on par with the (contiguous) U.S., China, India, and much of Western Europe combined. Data for this visualization comes from UN Statistics Division and total area (land + inland waters) was used for this comparison. Africa’s Area in Raw Numbers At 11.7 million mi² (30.4 million km²), Africa is the world’s second-largest continent after Asia. Put another way, it easily contains the contiguous U.S. (3.1M mi² / 8.1M km²) and China (3.7M mi² / 9.6M km² ) with room to spare. Country/Region Total Area (mi²) Readable Label Total Area (km²) Readable Label 🇺🇸 Contiguous U.S. 3,119,885 3.1M miles² 8,080,464 8.1M km² 🇨🇳 China 3,705,407 3.7M miles² 9,596,961 9.6M km² 🇮🇳 India 1,269,219 1.

The African Union's recent support for alternatives to the Mercator projection challenges historical cartographic distortions that misrepresent Africa's size.

The African Union (AU) has launched a bold initiative to reshape the world’s perception of Africa, beginning with the map. In a move that challenges centuries of distorted geography, the AU is backing the "Correct The Map" campaign, advocating for the global adoption of the Equal Earth projection. This modern map design aims to replace the centuries-old Mercator projection, which has long misrepresented Africa's true size and geopolitical significance. Africa covers 30.37 million square kilometres, large enough to fit the United States, China, India, and most of Europe combined. A Map That Shrinks Africa Developed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, the Mercator projection was originally designed for maritime navigation. However, its cylindrical design distorts landmasses, particularly near the equator. As a result, Africa appears significantly smaller than it is, about 14 times smaller than it should be. Meanwhile, regions like Greenland and parts of Europe appear disproportionately large.