Monday, March 14, 2022

How Big is Ukraine?

One of the recurring themes in the news coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been the large size of Ukraine. According to Nations Online "Ukraine is "600,000 km²; ... about twice the size of Italy or slightly smaller than the US state of Texas". 

You can compare the size of Ukraine to other locations around the world by using Hans Hack's Reprojector tool.The Reprojector interactive map allows you to compare different areas with each other by moving GeoJSON shapes around. The tool is great for comparing two (or more) different geographic areas with each other. 

The Reprojector tool allows you to upload any GeoJSON polygon onto an interactive map. This GeoJSON can be anything you want, including country or state borders. Once you have uploaded a polygon onto the Reprojector map you can then move the shape around to overlay the polygon on any other location in the world. When you are happy with the location of your polygon you can even download a GeoJSON file with the data to display your polygon in its new position.

If you want to use Reprojector to compare the size of Ukraine with other countries then you just need to cut & paste this Ukraine GeoJSON data from (ukraine.geojson) into the 'Paste' textbox in Reprojector.

If you don't want the hassle of cutting and pasting then you can use The True Size Of ... or My Life Elsewhere instead. These two map comparison sites allow you to automatically select different countries around the world to compare them on an interactive map.

For example, using The True Size Of ... you can enter the name of any country or state into a search box to add its shape to the map. You can then drag the shape around the map to compare its size to any other location in the world.

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