New Guinea is the world's second-largest island (after Greenland) and, with an area of 785,753 km², the largest island in the Southern Hemisphere. The U.K. is a mere 242,495 km². And yet, on most maps of the world, thanks to the socalled Mercator Projection, the two seem almost the same size.
If you want to know why this is so, read Simon Garfield's rivetting book "On the Map - Why the World Looks the Way it Does".
You can read it online at www.archive.org. Simply SIGN UP (its' free!), LOG IN and BORROW, and go straight to page 125 to read all about Mercator Projection. Here's a simple illustration what a map of the world would look line without the inflated Mercator Projection:
