New York: The familiar world map seen in classrooms, textbooks and on digital platforms could gradually begin to look different after the United Nations General Assembly backed an African-led proposal seeking more accurate representation of the actual size of continents and countries.
The resolution, called “Correct the Map”, was led by Togo with the backing of the African Union. It was adopted on Friday with 164 countries voting in favour, one against and six abstaining.
India supported the resolution, while the United States was the only country to vote against it.
The proposal encourages greater use of equal-area map projections, including the Equal Earth projection, instead of relying on the centuries-old Mercator projection when comparing the sizes of countries and continents.
Why Does Africa Look Smaller On Most World Maps?
At the centre of the debate is the Mercator projection, developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569.
The projection was originally designed for navigation and became one of the world’s most recognisable maps. However, because the Earth is spherical and a map is flat, Mercator distorts the size of land masses, particularly those farther from the Equator.
One of the clearest examples is Greenland and Africa.
On many Mercator maps, Greenland appears almost as large as Africa. In reality, Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland.
Regions in North America and northern Europe similarly appear disproportionately large compared with areas closer to the Equator.
Supporters of the UN resolution argue that these distortions can influence how generations of people perceive different parts of the world.
“Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said ahead of the vote.
What Is The Equal Earth Map?
The campaign promotes alternatives such as the Equal Earth projection, which was developed in 2018.
Unlike Mercator, an equal-area projection preserves the relative area of countries and continents. This means Africa appears much closer to its actual size relative to Greenland, Europe, North America and other regions.
The trade-off is that no flat map can perfectly reproduce every feature of a spherical planet. A projection may preserve area while distorting shapes, distances or directions.
Mercator remains particularly useful for navigation because it allows routes following a constant compass bearing to appear as straight lines.
The debate, therefore, is less about whether Mercator is mathematically “wrong” and more about whether it is the right projection when the purpose is to compare the actual sizes of different parts of the world.
Why Did The US Vote Against ‘Correct The Map’?
The proposal also triggered a political disagreement.
The United States cast the only vote against the resolution, criticising what it viewed as ideological language surrounding the campaign, including references to “cognitive justice” and reparations.
France, however, supported a shift away from Mercator for uses where accurate representation of land area is important.
Six countries — Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Serbia — abstained from the vote.
Ukraine supported the broader effort to address map distortions but raised concerns about the way disputed and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories could be represented on certain maps.
The European Union backed the resolution while stressing that changing the type of map projection does not alter internationally recognised borders, sovereignty or the legal status of disputed territories.
Will Schools And Google Maps Now Have To Change Their Maps?
Not necessarily.
The UN General Assembly resolution is non-binding. It does not ban the Mercator projection and does not compel governments, schools, publishers or technology companies to immediately replace existing maps.
Instead, it encourages greater use of equal-area projections in situations where accurately comparing the geographical size of countries and continents is important.
That means the familiar world map is unlikely to disappear overnight. But the UN vote could accelerate a wider shift towards maps that give students and the public a more realistic understanding of just how large different parts of the world actually are.
