this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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[–] nave@lemmy.ca 30 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Why does this image use the numbers for the entire US but only shows the continental US?

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 months ago

Came to the comments section to say this too. The contiguous States should also look visually smaller than China next to them, so I think they've blown them up to represent the full 9.8m km^2^.

[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Because if they were consistent or honest, they'd have to admit that the US is actuslly smaller than China (or Canada, which they chose to exclude).

[–] nave@lemmy.ca -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The US is bigger than China according to every source I found.

[–] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wikipedia explains this quite well.

The US figures include coastal and territorial waters. The Chinese figures exclude them. This is supposedly because it's impossiblebto know what water area is claimed by China.

However, China clearly has a greater land mass area; and measurements including accepted water area for China are bigger than the US including its waters.

[–] nave@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Therefore, while it can be determined that China has a larger area excluding coastal and territorial waters, it is unclear which country has a larger area including coastal and territorial waters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_area#cite_note-12