Unfold

The Earth is round and a screen is flat, so every flat map has to stretch something. The map most web maps use (Mercator) stretches places sideways the farther they are from the equator, then stretches them up and down by the same amount so their shapes stay right.

The price is size. At 60° north, everything is drawn twice as wide and twice as tall: four times its real area. That's why Greenland looks as big as Africa, when Africa is really 14 times bigger.

Drag a copy toward the equator and watch it shrink to its true size. Switch to Globe and nothing is stretched at all.