Continental Maps at proper scale

[Altitude sickness]

Many may have seen and or known this, but the continent is much larger than depicted on most maps.

 

[Luminous Ham]

Yes, most projections of our round globe onto 2D distorts the sizes. Probably the most used projections is the Mercato, which is also one of the worst when it comes to distorting sizes, more and more the further away the areas are from the equator, which is why e.g. Greenland is so big on this projection.

The Gall-Peter projection gets the areas right, but distorts angles so continents don't look like we are used to. See more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall–Peters_projection

I prefer, by far, the new equal earth projection, see
https://equal-earth.com/equal-earth-projection. You can download and print high resolution, it's beautiful, it looks like we are used to, and you can read a bit about the different types of projections.

 

[SaintPanzer]

The benefit of the mercator projection is both that it preserves shapes, and all rhumb lines are straight lines. Your compass will not be as valuable if you're plotting on an equal area projection, like the Gall-Peters or the "Equal Earth" projection. Are you comparing sizes, or actually using it for navigation?

Choosing the correct projection (for the intended purpose) is step one in Cartography.

 

[Luminous Ham]

The benefit of the mercator projection is both that it preserves shapes, and all rhumb lines are straight lines. Your compass will not be as valuable if you're plotting on an equal area projection, like the Gall-Peters or the "Equal Earth" projection. Are you comparing sizes, or actually using it for navigation?

Choosing the correct projection (for the intended purpose) is step one in Cartography.

Seems to me the OP was interested in sizes, that was the basis for my answer. Navigating is a different story.

 

[SaintPanzer]

I was trying to explain the "why". What's notable with a mercator projection is the size is dependent on the latitude. It's not really a "distorted" size, it's that the scale varies according to the latitude, but if you try and take in the whole thing, you're completely off... At the same time, the shape is correct.

If you really want to navigate well, start with a gnomic projection, where all your great circle lines are straight lines. But that's really only if you're going over a large area.

And then you have Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM), which has its own pros and cons.

It's the "at proper scale" thing that grabs attention. The scale is there. It just varies across the page.