Africa covers about 30 million square kilometers, making it roughly the same size as the United States, China, India, and much of Europe combined.

On many world maps, however, it appears much smaller. Europe can look similar in size, even though Africa is about three times larger in reality. Greenland can appear comparable as well, despite Africa being more than fourteen times its size.

This distortion comes from the Mercator projection, which enlarges regions farther from the equator while shrinking those closer to it.