UN Backs New World Map To Show Africa’s True Size More Accurately

The United Nations General Assembly has voted in support of a new approach to world maps that more accurately represents the true size of Africa and other continents, marking a major victory for a campaign that has challenged one of the world’s most familiar map designs.

The “Correct the Map” resolution, sponsored by Togo and supported by members of the African Union, received backing from 164 countries. France and the United Kingdom were among those supporting the resolution.

The United States was the only country to vote against it, while six countries abstained.

The resolution is non binding, meaning countries are not legally required to change the maps they use. However, supporters hope the UN decision will encourage governments, schools, international organisations and other institutions to move away from the traditional Mercator projection and use maps that better represent the relative sizes of continents.

At the centre of the debate is a basic problem that has existed for centuries: the Earth is round, while most maps are flat. Turning the surface of a globe into a flat image always requires some form of distortion.

The question is what kind of distortion a map accepts.

Why Africa Looks Smaller On Traditional Maps

The Mercator projection is one of the most recognisable world maps and has been widely used for centuries. However, it does not accurately show the relative land area of countries and continents.

The distortion becomes especially clear when Africa and Greenland are compared.

On many Mercator maps, Greenland can appear surprisingly close to Africa in size. In reality, Africa covers about 30.4 million square kilometres, while Greenland covers roughly 2.2 million square kilometres.

This means Africa is around 14 times larger than Greenland.

The difference is huge, but it is not immediately clear when looking at a standard Mercator world map.

The reason is that the Mercator projection makes areas farther from the equator appear increasingly larger. Areas closer to the equator do not receive the same visual enlargement.

As a result, northern countries and regions can look much bigger in relation to Africa, South America and other areas closer to the equator than they actually are.

Supporters of the Correct the Map campaign argue that this is more than a technical issue.

They say maps influence how people understand the world and can shape perceptions about the importance, resources, population and economic potential of different regions.

Online campaign group #CorrectTheMap has highlighted Africa’s enormous physical size by pointing out that the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe could fit within Africa with land still remaining.

African Union Supports Equal Earth

The African Union’s 54 member states adopted the Equal Earth projection in February, saying it provides a more accurate representation of the sizes of continents, particularly Africa.

Equal Earth is an equal area map projection. This means it is designed so that the relative area of countries and continents is represented correctly.

Africa therefore appears much larger in relation to Greenland, Europe and northern regions than it does on a Mercator map.

The projection does not eliminate every type of distortion. No flat world map can perfectly reproduce every feature of a spherical Earth.

However, Equal Earth prioritises accurate land area while also trying to maintain a visually familiar and balanced shape for the continents.

Togo Pushes The Issue At The UN

Togolese Foreign Minister Robert Dussey became one of the leading international voices supporting the resolution.

Ahead of the UN vote, Dussey said: “A fair world begins with a fair map.”

He also argued that maps are not simply neutral illustrations because they can influence how people understand countries, continents and their place in the world.

France also supported moving away from Mercator.

French Foreign Minister Jean Noël Barrot said his ministry would stop using the Mercator projection, arguing that correcting a distorted representation was an important step even though changing a map does not change the world itself.

Campaigners say the wider goal is to challenge outdated perceptions of Africa.

Why Did The United States Vote Against It?

The United States was the only country to vote against the resolution.

US representative Yaryna Ferencevych criticised the proposal and questioned whether the UN General Assembly should be spending its time debating map projections.

She argued that the organisation should instead concentrate on issues directly connected to international peace, prosperity and relations between countries.

The disagreement reflects a wider debate about whether map projections should be treated mainly as technical tools or whether their influence on education, politics and public perceptions gives them broader social importance.

The History Of The Mercator Projection

The Mercator projection dates back more than 450 years.

It was developed in 1569 by Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer who became one of the most important mapmakers of his era.

Mercator was born in 1512 in Rupelmonde, in what is now Belgium.

His famous world map was not originally designed to provide a perfect visual comparison of the sizes of continents.

Its major advantage was navigation.

The projection represented lines of constant compass direction as straight lines. For sailors navigating long distances, this was extremely useful because they could plot a course using a straight line on the map.

This helped make the Mercator projection highly valuable during an age of European maritime exploration and global trade. Its usefulness for navigation contributed to its long lasting influence.

But the mathematical method required to create that useful navigation system produces increasingly large distortions as a map moves toward the North and South Poles.

This is why Greenland, Canada, Russia and northern Europe appear much larger than their true land area would suggest.

Africa, located largely around the equator, does not receive the same enlargement.

The result is a world map that is useful for certain navigation purposes but misleading when used to compare the physical sizes of countries and continents.

Despite that limitation, the Mercator projection became deeply familiar to generations of people through maps, classrooms and other forms of geographic representation.

It also remains useful in some modern digital mapping applications because of its practical geometric properties.

The History Of Equal Earth

Equal Earth is much newer.

The projection was introduced in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson and Bernhard Jenny.

It was developed as an equal area projection, meaning regions are displayed in correct proportion to one another in terms of surface area.

The designers also wanted the map to have an appearance that would be easy for the public to recognise and understand.

Equal Earth was influenced by earlier attempts to produce world maps that accurately represent area while still maintaining visually appealing continent shapes.

Its rounded appearance is noticeably different from the rectangular Mercator map.

Most importantly for the current debate, Africa appears in a proportion much closer to its true physical size compared with Europe, Greenland and other regions.

This feature has helped make Equal Earth central to the campaign calling for changes in how Africa is represented on world maps.

Why Every Flat World Map Has Problems

There is no completely distortion free flat map of Earth.

Earth is a three dimensional object with a curved surface. A world map is two dimensional.

Transforming one into the other requires compromises.

Different map projections therefore preserve different geographic qualities.

Some are designed to represent area accurately. Others prioritise direction, distance, shape or specific navigation needs.

Mercator is particularly useful when preserving direction is important, but it significantly changes relative area.

Equal Earth preserves relative area but, like every flat world map, cannot perfectly preserve every shape, distance and direction at the same time.

A globe remains the closest simple representation of the planet’s overall geography without the major projection problems created when the world is flattened onto a rectangular surface.

What Could Change After The UN Vote?

The UN resolution does not mean that Mercator maps will immediately disappear.

Because the decision is non binding, individual governments, educational institutions, international organisations, publishers and mapmakers can make their own decisions about which projections they use.

Mercator also continues to have practical uses, particularly in navigation and digital mapping systems.

The main change could instead be in situations where a world map is being used to teach or communicate the comparative size of countries and continents.

Supporters want Equal Earth and other appropriate equal area projections to become more common in classrooms, official publications and international institutions.

The campaign has particular importance for Africa, a continent of more than 30 million square kilometres whose size is often difficult to appreciate when viewed through a traditional Mercator map.

For supporters of the resolution, changing the map is therefore not about making Africa larger but about showing Africa closer to the size it has always been.