And now for some fun

Yesterday, one of my Tanzanian students asked when I was coming to visit them.  Obviously, Tanzania is a large country, and you really can’t get there from here.  I told him that I’m coming, and I really do want to come; I just need to find the time to traipse about East Africa.

Then I wondered how large Tanzania is, so I Googled “how large is Tanzania compared to” and let it autocomplete the word “states.”  Google gave me this fun web page:  http://mapfight.appspot.com, which lets you compare countries and states, and gives a graphic that overlays your two choices.  

I thought this was great fun, and wasted spent a fair amount of time with it.  I learned that Tanzania is 8.53 times as big as Virginia, but it is .55 times bigger than Alaska (e.g., Alaska is larger).  Really, the possibilities for map comparison are quite a lot – check it out!