The U.S of A is not bigger than Africa

access_time 07 Jul, 2016 12:53 pm visibility 746 | comment 0

It is not uncommon to hear people talk about how much bigger than Africa the U.S is. In the past week, I had to clarify this for two different groups who were having quite a heated argument on the subject.

The United States of America is not bigger than Africa. On the contrary, Africa is bigger than twice the size of the United States of America and bigger than North America (United States of America and Canada) as a whole.

While Africa has an area of 30,244,049 km2 (11,677,239m2), North America (United States of America and Canada) has an area of 24,247,039km2 (9,361,791m2).

This makes me wonder why the assumption that the United States of America is bigger than Africa is so popular. We need to take out time to confirm stuff every now and then.

Canada - 9,984,670km2 (3,854,082m2)
United States - 9,631,418km2 (3,717,727m2)

Moral lesson: If you don't know, ask Google.

Reference: http://mistupid.com/geography/continents.htm