Why the Misconception? Interestingly, the problem with maps is not that Africa is sized incorrectly. Using the animation below, you’ll see that Africa is actually the most accurately sized continent using the common Mercator map projection. The Mercator projection attempts to place the spherical shape of the world onto a cylinder, causing areas closest to the poles to be “stretched”. Africa, which straddles the Equator, barely changes in size — meanwhile, the countries furthest from the Equator become inflated from their true sizes on this type of map.