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Does "land area" assume a country is perfectly flat?

Stand-up Maths · 858.7K views · 2020-08-19 · 17:51

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Overview

Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths asks whether a country's reported land area accounts for hills and mountains, working through how surface area depends on the resolution of elevation data. It follows up on a question from a viewer and work by researchers who measured it.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it in map projection and coastline threads as a fun look at how measurement choices change area figures.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2020–2023

Topics

Recreational & visual mathGeology & earth science
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surface areatopographymapsmeasurementmathematics

What people said

rdlw · 2023-04 · Recommendation

Then it becomes a coastline problem, with different answers depending on the resolution of your elevation data. Great video on this from Matt Parker (focusing on area in this case): [VIDEO]

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jobigoud · 2020-11 · Recommendation

Matt Parker from Standup Maths made a great video on exactly this subject a few weeks ago. "Does land area assume a country is perfectly flat?" [VIDEO]

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swilliamsio · 2020-09 · Recommendation

>But then realized that the coastline paradox must also exist for 3D surfaces (TINs or DEMs or whatnot) so asking “what is the area of a surface on earth” can be a very complex question if dealing with elevation. StandUpMaths did a great video on this recently, asking whether national land area includes elevation and which nations would gain/lose the most land area if it were/weren't: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Stand-up Maths, played through YouTube.

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