The original search area in the Strait of Malacca, the South China Sea and on land across Malaysia encompassed around 120,000 square nautical miles. In this grid, each square represents one square nautical mile being searched.

The new expanded search area, which follows an arc of possible last known position for the flight,
will now cover over 2.24 million square nautical miles stretching from Kazakhstan to Australia.
Each square in this grid represents one square nautical mile of ocean and land being searched.
The plane is right in the center and scaled to size. Click the image until you get there.
Now you know what the searchers are up against.