I love that clip (and pretty much everything else in The West Wing).
But there is actually a reason the Mercator map (which distorts size) is so widely used, which isn't really mentioned in the clip.
EDIT: Actually it is mentioned in the clip! Treats me right to rely on memory :) I'm leaving the explanation here for anyone that hasn't seen the clip. Thanks yummyfajitas for pointing out my mistake.
The gist of the reasoning is this: take any 3D object, and try and map it onto a 2D surface, and you're going to have to distort something. In the case of the Mercator map, the plan was to make a map that clearly showed "shipping lanes", i.e. if you draw a straight line on the map from one point to another, you can travel in a straight line in the real word between those points. This is important for sea travel (the Mercator map was created in the 1500's). The trade-off to this decision was that sizes were distorted.
I'm a Brit and had a similar moment of realisation when I discovered America wasn't about the size of Spain + France. I think it was the facial expression my (American) girlfriend gave me when I suggested we drive for a weekend away in Florida (we were in New Jersey at the time) that tipped me off.
America is basically the size of Europe, which really surprised me. But then, it's not knowledge you ever really need to know.
No, America (meaning the USA) is somewhat smaller than Europe, especially if you count European Russia, another country whose size is often underestimated. Though, it is helpful to realize that the United States is, in fact, larger in terms of landmass than China, and is exceeded only by Canada (the other North American Anglo democracy, much of whose land is largely empty due to the extreme cold) and by Russia, (another country with a lot cold, mostly unused land.)
Russia, even in its post Soviet scaled-back state, is in fact largely an empire. Most of its land was conquered from indigenous peoples who still inhabit it, this it not too different from both the United States and Canada, though the circumstances are somewhat different.
It's smaller, yes, but not by much. The USA is 9.8 million km^2 and Europe is 10.2 million km^2. Though that does include Alaska.
I think the thing that took me the longest to "get" was simply the distances between things. If you'd asked me a few years ago how far one coast of the USA is from the other, I'd probably guess at around a thousand miles. Top to bottom maybe 500.
Mind you I also didn't realise Washington wasn't in Washington state.
My parents and I live in Texas, and they went to New York a few years ago on vacation, renting a car and just driving around for awhile.
They'd take out a map, determine their approximate route from point A to point B, figure it would take about three hours... and arrive, confused, 45 minutes later.
Until I started dating an American girl, I can't say I was ever in a situation where I needed to know how big America was. The US just isn't very significant to the average European.
It's interesting that you selected Spain + France. Texas + California (our 2nd and 3rd biggest states) are only slightly smaller than Spain + France. Alaska (our largest) is bigger than France, Ukraine, and Sweden combined.
Since this visualisation is dedicated to the fight against "immappancy" I'd like to mention that Eastern Europe generally doesn't include any of Austria (Central Europe), Greece (South Europe) but it definitely does include the Baltic states, Belarus and the European parts of Russia. Just sayin'.
Am I an outlier in not being at all startled at this? They compare one of the World's largest continents to one of the smallest, plus some other countries (some of which are large; but not the two largest).
Perhaps this is due to being British, I am used to the fact that my country is small and that the rest of the world is in fact, very large.
To be fair, I am reminded of when I mentioned to a friend I was considering emigrating to Montreal, and she replied that she might be moving to Vancouver and we could meet up at weekends...
I truely feel sorry for being one of these ignorant people. Looking at the image I can confirm that I'd have answered the question _way_ off (USA, India, China? No way!).
This makes my day. I learned something, feel humiliated enough to go on and read more about Geography for the rest of the evening - and all because of a creative illustration.
Yes, that was what I just meant to google up as well. These maps were made by the venerable Buckminster Fuller. And he explains really nicely, how the Mercator projection was really sufficient when you navigate with ships, and how it even helps that the distortion gets you constant compass reading when you follow a "line" on the map, and what is a delicate curve in reality. It only entered the (first military, later public) conscience when air travel and intercontinental missiles became available that the geographic distance between Alaska and the USSR was quite small in places.
I know Fuller is a bit of a persona non-grata among scientific-minded people, because of his fantasy approach and his rejection of mathematics. But it was Einstein who said "imagination is more important than knowledge."
At least the placement of Europe in the middle of the map makes sense, because then the map edge occurs in the middle of the Pacific and doesn't cut anything important in half (no offence, Aleutian Islanders!) Similarly, Australian-made world maps stick the map edge in the Atlantic. But putting the Americas in the middle of the map makes no sense, you have to cut Eurasia in half somewhere.
I assume that the numbers to the left of the image (area of USA) include Alaska, so I think your comment actually is pretty accurate: the unallocated gray area and the area of Alaska must be pretty close to the same.
I have to ask then, Why is Africa in SUCH poverty. Compared to the rest of the world, Africa as a continent is third world. Why the hell has it never been better than what it was when kings and queens had control of Africa. Did it have a brain drain when the slaves were exported?
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection