Scale It
Resize one country until it matches another at true scale.
What it is
Two countries sit side by side. The blue one on the left is drawn to scale. Drag the corner of the gold one until the two are in their real proportions, then lock it in. The real size glides in as a glowing outline so you can see exactly how far off you were.
How to play
- Drag the round handle on the gold country's corner to make it bigger or smaller. On a keyboard the arrow keys work too.
- Pinch, scroll or use the magnifying glass buttons to zoom; the frame button fits both countries back in view.
- Press Lock in (or Enter). Your grade out of 100 counts up in the middle of the screen, and the panel tells you how far off you were, for example "25% too big".
- The daily set is three pairs. Practice deals new pairs for as long as you like.
Scoring
Each pair is graded out of 100. Anything within 15% of the real size scores a full 100, and the grade falls away smoothly from there until you are two and a half times too big or too small, which scores nothing. A pair 25% off still earns about 89. The daily score is your three grades as one percentage, and 50% or better counts as a win.
Honest shapes
Every country is redrawn in its own equal-area projection, centred on that country, so a square kilometre is the same size on both sides of the screen, whether it's near the equator or near the pole. Far-off territories are left out, so the United States is shown without Alaska and Hawaii and France without its overseas regions, while islands close to the mainland stay, so the Philippines and Indonesia keep their archipelagos. The very smallest countries are left out, and each pair is between one and a half and 25 times apart in area.
Tips
Map projections have trained all of us to overrate countries far from the equator. Greenland, Canada and Russia look enormous on most wall maps; here, with true areas, Africa's countries are often bigger than you expect and northern ones smaller. Judge by area, not width: a long thin country like Chile covers less ground than its length suggests.