The real contact area is an important factor in all types of tribological contacts and usually smaller than the apparent contact area by several orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, most of the methods to measure or model the real contact area are not suitable for soft polymers. The presented work deals with different methods to analyse the real contact area of soft polymers. Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations have been used to follow the contact formation at the nanoscale. At the microscale, the real contact area was observed using a laser scanning microscope. As an indirect method, the measurement of the detachment work required to release a contact was also successfully applied. Since all methods have their own limitations, a combination of different methods is crucial for interpreting the results. It was found, that for soft polymers, the real area of contact under typical loads is in the percentage range compared to the apparent contact area. Dependencies on different loading conditions were analysed. Simulations were used to develop approximations to estimate the size of a single contact for high penetration depths. Such approximations are important since current analytical models only apply for small penetration depths, what is not suitable for soft polymers.