No obvious signs that it's a bit, but Poe's law, etc.
https://xcancel.com/golub/status/1967499170283221103
🇺🇦 in bio
Bonus
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
144 points (100.0% liked)
Slop.
729 readers
460 users here now
For posting all the anonymous reactionary bullshit that you can't post anywhere else.
Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.
Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.
Rule 3: No sectarianism.
Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome
Rule 5: No bigotry of any kind, including ironic bigotry.
Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.
Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
For those wondering, the mercador projection (used for this map) is the reason for this and was invented by a Flemish man called Gerardus Mercador. It is a western European construct in every sense.
As always.
Also, while it is distorted, I don't think this diagram is actually correct. When you measure the distance between two points on Google Maps, it calculates the shortest distance, which in the case of Russia is a polar route almost entirely over the Arctic Ocean—very much NOT the straight line shown in the diagram. Wikipedia gives the distance as 9000 km starting from Kaliningrad Oblast, which is an exclave, so if you shave off the ~500 km to the main western border of Russia it gives you ~8500 km (you can add a few intermediate points to Google Maps to get a similar result). Obviously still incredibly distorted, so the real takeaway should be that they're comparable in size.
This website is fun to play around with since it lets you overlay countries on each other in the Mercator projection which really shows you how distorted it is. The default view shows you how the US lower 48, China, and India can comfortable fit inside Africa with about a Europe to spare.