All Maps Are Wrong

The Earth is a sphere (roughly). A map is flat. You cannot perfectly represent a 3D surface on a 2D plane without distorting something — shape, size, distance, or direction. Every map you have ever seen is a compromise, and the compromises are not random. They reflect the priorities and biases of whoever made the map.

The most common classroom map — the Mercator projection — preserves direction, which makes it great for navigation, but it massively distorts size near the poles. Greenland looks as large as Africa, when in reality Africa is 14 times larger.