Name six European countries, fast. You said France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland and the UK, or close enough. The heavyweights. The ones with the football leagues and the history books.
Now add them up. France 635,073 km². Spain 506,185. Germany 356,168. Poland 312,571. Italy 300,272. The UK 239,619. Total: about 2.35 million km².
The United States is 9,439,564 km². Six famous countries, one quarter of one America. You could tuck all of them inside the USA and three more copies of all of them, and you’d still have change.
The overlay does the talking
Open the scene and the USA is already lying across Europe with all six countries lit up beneath it. Most of the outline is still hungry.
A few comparisons to keep in your pocket:
- Texas alone is bigger than France. 688,751 km² against 635,073.
- California is bigger than Germany. 409,774 against 356,168.
- Alaska is about seven United Kingdoms. One state.
- Driving Boston to Seattle is nearly 5,000 km. London to Istanbul, right across the whole of Europe, is about 3,000.
None of this is a dig at Europe. The full continent, Russia and all, comes to about 10 million km² and out-areas the USA. It’s a dig at intuition. The countries that fill your mental map of Europe are, by land, individual American states.
Bonus round: the map’s still fibbing
Watch the distortion readout while you’re in there. Parked at 50 degrees north, the USA is drawn about 2.4 times too big, and the map tells you so on the spot. The UK, up at its home latitude, wears a 2.9x costume every single day. So the wall map has been inflating these countries your whole life, and they still fit inside America four times over.
That’s the fact worth repeating at dinner. And if America now feels enormous, remember that one rainforest covers 70 per cent of it.