France is the big European country. Hudson Bay is the dent in Canada. One hosts the Louvre. The other hosts polar bears and a shipping season measured in weeks. Your brain has already ranked them.
Your brain is wrong.
Hudson Bay: 767,887 km². France: 635,073 km².
The bay is larger by about 130,000 km², roughly the size of Greece. A “bay”, inland, half-forgotten on every world map that isn’t Canadian, out-areas the largest country in the European Union.
It’s barely even trying to be famous
Hudson Bay is relatively shallow, averaging around 100 metres, which is puddle behaviour by ocean standards. It freezes over in winter. It drains a watershed the size of Europe. Henry Hudson entered it in 1610 looking for a passage to Asia and instead found a cul-de-sac that would outlive his reputation as a navigator. The bay kept the name. Hudson did not keep the crew.
Canada somehow contains this and still gets introduced as America’s hat. See also: Canada is larger than the USA.
Swap the dent for the hexagon
Open Hudson Bay vs France. The bay has been dragged across the Atlantic and laid over western Europe. France fits inside it with coastline to spare. Drag France back onto Canada and watch a G7 country become an island in somebody else’s indentation.
The Mediterranean already humbled France at two and a half times the hexagon. Hudson Bay does it with less branding and worse weather. Size keeps turning up in the places the legend left blank.