Sep 4 – The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed a new world map designed to present the relative size of continents more accurately, marking a significant step in a campaign led by African countries and advocacy groups to challenge the long-standing distortions of traditional maps.
In a vote on Friday, the General Assembly adopted a resolution encouraging governments, educational institutions, businesses and other organizations to consider using the Equal Earth projection instead of relying primarily on the centuries-old Mercator map. Supporters say the newer projection offers a more realistic representation of the world’s landmasses, particularly Africa, whose size has historically been diminished by the visual distortions of the Mercator projection.
The resolution was sponsored by Togo and supported by members of the African Union. It passed with 164 member states voting in favor. The United States was the only country to vote against the measure, while Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine abstained.
The decision does not prohibit the use of the Mercator projection or establish a mandatory replacement. Instead, it encourages wider adoption of maps that provide a more accurate visual representation of the relative sizes of continents and countries.
A Push to Change How the World Is Seen
The debate over world maps may appear to concern geography alone, but supporters of the resolution argue that maps also influence how people understand the world and their place within it.
Traditional Mercator maps have been widely used for centuries in schools, books, newsrooms and other institutions. Because of the way the projection translates the curved surface of the Earth onto a flat map, areas closer to the North and South poles appear substantially larger than they actually are.
One of the most frequently cited examples is the visual comparison between Greenland and Africa. On a conventional Mercator map, the two can appear relatively similar in size. In reality, Africa is approximately 14 times larger than Greenland.
Advocates say this distortion can create a misleading perception of the physical scale of different regions. While no flat map can perfectly reproduce every feature of a spherical planet, cartographers have developed alternative projections that prioritize different forms of accuracy.
The Equal Earth projection, introduced in 2018, was created to provide a visually balanced world map while maintaining the correct relative proportions of land areas. It follows the curvature of the Earth more naturally and avoids the extreme enlargement of regions near the poles that occurs on the Mercator map.
Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey emphasized the broader significance of maps before the General Assembly vote.
“Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey said, according to the United Nations. “They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”
His comments reflected a central argument behind the campaign, that geographical representation can influence cultural, educational and political perceptions over generations.
Africa No Filter, one of the organizations involved in promoting the adoption of more proportionally accurate maps, welcomed the General Assembly’s decision. The group said it hopes to see accurate world maps increasingly used in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and the major digital platforms used by billions of people around the world.
Several countries also welcomed the resolution and urged wider recognition of the Equal Earth projection.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot commented after the vote that updating the map would not change the physical realities of the world, but said correcting a distorted representation was still important.
“Changing the map obviously doesn’t change the world,” Barrot said in a post on X. “But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth.”
The Mercator projection has a long and important history. It was developed in the 16th century by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator and became particularly valuable for maritime navigation. The projection allows sailors to draw straight-line routes that correspond with a constant compass direction, making it highly practical for navigation.
That specialized purpose explains why the Mercator map remains significant today. However, experts say the characteristics that made it useful for sailors do not necessarily make it the best choice for general education or for showing the true relative size of continents.
The projection increasingly enlarges land areas as they approach the poles. As a result, regions including Greenland and parts of North America and Europe can appear much larger in comparison with equatorial regions than they actually are. Africa and South America, by contrast, appear comparatively smaller.
Mark Monmonier, a professor of geography at Syracuse University, has argued that the Mercator projection has a legitimate but limited purpose.
“Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it,” Monmonier said, referring to the map’s specialized usefulness for navigation.
The resolution adopted by the United Nations does not suggest that every existing map must immediately disappear or that the Equal Earth projection is suitable for every possible use. Different map projections serve different purposes, and cartographers regularly select them according to whether they need to preserve direction, shape, distance or area.
Instead, the General Assembly’s action represents an attempt to promote greater awareness of those differences and encourage institutions to reconsider which maps they use when teaching people about the world.
For African countries and campaigners behind the initiative, the issue also carries symbolic importance. Africa is the world’s second-largest continent, yet its apparent size on the Mercator projection has often led to misunderstandings about its actual scale.
The continent is large enough to contain numerous major countries and regions within its boundaries, yet its visual representation on many commonly used world maps can make it appear far smaller in comparison with northern landmasses.
The U.N. vote is unlikely to immediately replace maps in classrooms or on digital platforms. Such changes would depend on decisions by governments, publishers, technology companies, educators and institutions around the world.
Still, the strong support for the resolution demonstrates growing international recognition of the issue. With 164 member states voting in favor, the measure gives political momentum to a campaign that seeks to change one of the most familiar images through which people view the planet.