How Big Is Colombia Really? Colombia Vs. The World Map

How big in Colombia? That might seem like a strange question, right?! You’re all (surely) thinking: “well, Tom, it’s exactly 1,141,748km2 since you asked!”

Aha, but I’m not talking about exact sizes: if we want to be exact, then we can state that Colombia is, in terms of area, the 25th largest country on earth, right between South Africa and Ethiopia. It also has the 28th largest population in the world…but those aren’t the things we’re looking at: what we are looking at is how big Colombia is really. 

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Thanks to a funny little map-making quirk named the “Mercator Projection” the maps we accept as standard don’t actually show countries’ size in relation to each other all that accurately. Basically, towards the north and south of a standard world map, the countries are distorted in size, and countries near the Equator are shrunk…so, in fact, Colombia is a lot bigger than many people realize: how big? Check out these cool images to see for yourself…

So here’s Colombia as the world usually sees it…

But here’s Colombia compared to France… So Cartagena to Bogotá is basically Manchester to Paris…

Now vs. Spain: that’s basically just Colombia’s central regions…

Colombia dwarfs the United Kingdom in reality! 

And makes Scandinavia seem a little small as well…

Central Europe is fairly covered as well…

A road trip along the entire West Coast of the USA would be about the same as the length of Colombia

And check out Alaska! This is where the Mercator Projection seems the craziest: nearer to the Poles.

I mean, check out Greenland! Crazy, right?!

And Antarctica!!! It’s getting silly now!

However…as much as I like projecting Colombia over the map and making it huge…some countries are just massive!

Imagine driving that! 

However, when you consider that Colombia is second only to Brazil in natural diversity, this map comes out in favor of Colombia, really…

So what have we learned here? That Colombia, far from being too often overlooked by the world in many ways, is, in fact, much larger than much of the world realizes. How else could we fit in the Andes, Amazon, two coastlines, deserts, cosmopolitan metropolises, rivers, lakes, jungles, and valleys, right?! So next time you look at a world map, remember the Mercator Projection, and ask yourself, how big is Colombia really?!

Author’s note: This article was originally published by Chris on the site www.seeColombia.travel. It has now been edited by Thomas Espeute, following the acquisition of SeeColombia.travel by Tomplanmytrip.

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