A Thousand Words - The Peter's Projection Map

No - this isn't an image that's been squished out of shape by too much dragging and dropping.  It's the Peter's Projection Map, a map that accurately portrays the relative sizes of the continent.  It corrects for the huge distortions of continent size/shape necessitated by the Mercator Projection map, which is great for navigation but not so great for accurately portraying what the earth actually looks like. 

Go ahead and enjoy being freaked out as you realize just how small Europe is - and just how vast China is!  Also, remember how big Iceland was on the map your teacher posted in the classroom? Just try finding it here ...!

SOURCE: http://education.ed.pacificu.edu/bailey/resources/courses/methods04/533home.html

Now, google "West Wing - Cartographers for Social Equality" for a clip of how the fictional characters of the TV show West Wing greeted the suggestion that the U.S. adopt this version of the world map.