Have you ever looked at a vendenskortet a world map and thought, “Oh wow, the Earth is so neat and flat!”?
Well, my friend, you’ve already been fooled. Because the world map is basically the greatest joke humans have ever pulled on themselves.
Let’s start with the huge problem: the Earth is round. (Okay, technically an oblate spheroid, but let’s not ruin the mood with a little too complicated words that sound more like a Harry Potter spell.) And when you try to flatten a huge round Earth onto a piece of paper, things get a little, no, a lot awkward. It’s like trying to iron a watermelon and then paste it in your notebook.
The Big Lies of Verdenskortet
The world map looks innocent. It hangs on classroom walls, sits in atlases, and appears on Google Maps every time you get lost trying to find the nearest pizza or burger place. But deep down, the map is full of lies.
Lie number one: Greenland. On the map, Greenland looks bigger than Africa. HUGE. Like the Hulk of countries (but white in colour). While in reality, Africa is 14 times larger. That’s right—Greenland is basically the small kid who borrowed their dad’s jacket and now looks massive but is actually tiny underneath.
Lie number two: Australia looks lonely. On the map, Australia just floats there, lonely and alone, far away from everyone else. But if you spin the globe just a little, you realise it’s no THAT isolated. There are neighbours like Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, just chilling nearby, waving towards Australia.
Lie number three: Antarctica is a drama queen. On maps, Antarctica looks like a massive soft white blanket taking up the whole Southern Hemisphere. But in reality, it’s big, yes, but not THAT big. The poor continent is like someone who put on too much winter clothing and now can’t fit through the door.
North Is Always Up – But Who Decided That?
Another funny thing about world maps is that north is always at the top—But who decided this? Was there a secret world meeting or something where someone said, “Listen, guys, north is cooler than south, so let’s put it on… top”?
If Australians had made the first world map, South would be at the top, and Europe would look like it’s hanging upside down like a confused bat. Imagine Europeans trying to accept that. “What do you mean we’re at the bottom of the map?!” they’d cry while sipping tea nervously.
The Country Size Ego Problem
Maps are not just tools—they also hurt the feelings of many countries. Some countries look way smaller than they are, and others look bigger for some reason. Basically, it’s like Instagram filters for nations.
Russia: On the map, it looks like it’s taking up more than half the Earth. You almost expect it to knock on Canada’s door and say, “Excuse me, can you squeeze over?”
India: Always looks really smaller than it is. Which is actually unfair, because how can a country with more than a trillion people be just squeezed into like a juice box?
Tiny islands: On the map, they often just vanish. So sorry, Maldives, you can’t make the cut.
The “Where Am I?” Problem
Here’s another huge issue: people always argue about where things actually are. On the world map, countries look like they’re close, hugging each other, but in real life, they’re far apart.
For example: On the map, Spain and Morocco look like neighbours always asking for salt from each other, “Oh, I just wanted some salt,”. But then you realise there’s a very deep ocean in between. Not so neighbourly after all.
And don’t even get me started on flights. You think going from New York to Tokyo is just a simple straight line across the map. But no. The plane flies in a really weird curve over Alaska, because the Earth is round, remember? So if it goes straight, it takes more time, and they are curved because they are the shortest distance between two points on a spherical Earth. Simply, maps always get things really complicated.
Kids vs. Verdenskortet
Every child in a classroom looking at a world map always has the same questions:
“Why is Greenland so huge?”
“Why is my country so tiny?”
“Why is there no treasure marked with an X on the map?”
Maps are supposed to teach kids about geography, but honestly, they mostly teach trust issues. Because once a teacher tells you, “Yes, Africa is really bigger than it looks,” you realise the map has been lying to you your whole childhood.
Imagine If Maps Were Honest
What if we had brutally honest world maps? They would look something like this:
Greenland: Shrunk down to the size of a tiny seed.
Africa: Taking up half of the wall.
Antarctica: Wearing a “Sorry, I’m not that huge” board.
Countries with tiny islands: “Zoom in a lot, please. We actually exist.”
The middle of the ocean: “Nothing at all here, unless you’re a fish.”
Verdenskortet in Daily Life
Believe it or not, we still believe in these lying maps every day. Want some proof? Check your emoji keyboard. That little globe emoji is basically a cartoon version of our round earth. No one will ever complain, but if aliens ever see that emoji, they’ll think we live on a blue and green pancake.
Even politicians sometimes point at maps during speeches, pretending to look serious. But deep down, we all know the truth: they’re pointing at a cartoon version of the Earth.
Final Thoughts
So, the next time you peek at a verdenskortet, remember: it’s not at all the truth, it’s just an artistic prank to squish a huge ball onto a small rectangle. Countries get widened, shrunk, twisted, or vanish like some sort of clay.
But maybe that’s all okay. After all, maps are not about being perfect and all—they’re just about helping us find the right way… or at least helping us pretend we know where the right way is.
And if you ever get lost—by mistake— while travelling, just remember this golden rule: don’t trust the map a lot, just trust the pizza place on the corner.
Because the pizza place is always in the right spot, no matter what.