In Greenland, enthusiasm about Donald Trump’s plans is limited. Image: keystone
US President Donald Trump wants to incorporate Greenland into his country. The largest island in the world is actually huge – but not quite as big as you might think.
January 25, 2026, 11:47January 25, 2026, 11:47
In his second term, Donald Trump is staggering around like a elephant in a china shop of diplomatic customs. He openly calls on Denmark, an ally of his own country, to cede Greenland to the USA. At least in terms of area, the annexation of Greenland would be an excellent deal for Trump. A quick look at the world map shows this:
Greenland (red) is simply gigantic. Map: Shutterstock/Watson
In fact, the largest island in the world is larger than Saudi Arabia and would be by far the largest US state. Wait – just bigger than Saudi Arabia? We can see on the map that Greenland is larger than all of South America and even almost exceeds Africa!
But the numbers speak a different language: Greenland is almost 2.2 million square kilometers in size, which is more than 52 times as big as Switzerland, but much less than South America (17.8 million km²), not to mention Africa (30.3 million km²). If it looks different on the map, that’s because it doesn’t true to area is.
Every card is just a compromise. No matter how you twist it, the three-dimensional surface of a sphere cannot be adequately represented on a two-dimensional surface. Either the shape of the countries and continents is correct, but the surfaces are distorted. Or the surfaces are in the correct relationship to one another – at the expense of the correct shape.
The above map uses the so-called Mercator projectionwhich sacrifices area fidelity to the correct shape. The closer an area is to the North or South Pole, the more it will be enlarged when depicted. This is also the case with Greenland, the vast majority of which lies north of the Arctic Circle.
But how big is Greenland really?
The best way to see how big Greenland really is is to tear it out of its Arctic context and transplant it to another part of the globe. Using a tool like thetruesize.com this can be done easily. Here we see Greenland in direct comparison to Brazil:
At 8.5 million km², Brazil is around four times larger than Greenland. Map: thetruesize.com/watson
And here in comparison to India:
At 3.3 million km², India is also larger than Greenland.Map: thetruesize.com/watson
Compared to Europe:
Greenland, which would stretch north-south from Oslo to Tunis, would be the largest European country after Russia. Map: thetruesize.com/watson
Compared to the USA:
And finally in comparison to Alaska:
Greenland is larger than the largest US state at 1.7 million km². Map: thetruesize.com/watson
Conclusion: Greenland is actually huge. But it’s nowhere near as big as it appears on many classic map projections. As always, context is important.
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Video: Watson/Lucas Zollinger