Not true. This is a screenshot taken from https://thetruesize.com/, which addresses the issue you mention. You can see, for example, that the yellow outline of poland is larger than the cyan one nearer the equator.

Here's one I did myself to better illustrate that effect:

The Pacific ocean has a surface area of approximately 165 million square kilometres, and poland is about 300,000 square kilometres, so on that basis, you should be able to squeeze around 550 polands into the Pacific, though poorly fitting edges would obviously reduce that, but suffice to say, 16 is well undercounted, and the image accurately portrays that