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🇵🇱 Poland /Culture & Society

164 countries back a push to change the world’s most popular map, with only the United States opposed

From Rzeczpospolita · () Polish

Translated from Polish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Approved/passed
  • The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution encouraging countries and institutions to move away from the Mercator projection, with 164 votes in favor and only the United States opposed.
  • The resolution, initiated by Togo and supported by African Union members, promotes maps that more accurately represent the relative sizes of countries and continents.
  • It does not ban the Mercator map, but could encourage changes in education programs and mapping technologies.

The world’s most familiar map has come under a sweeping challenge: 164 countries backed a UN resolution encouraging a move away from the Mercator projection, while the United States cast the only opposing vote. Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine abstained.

Maps shape our perception of the world. They guide education, feed the imagination and influence collective ideas.

· Robert DusseyTogo’s foreign minister, quoted in support of the resolution encouraging alternatives to the Mercator projection.

The resolution was initiated by Togo and supported by member states of the African Union. Its central argument is visible on many classroom maps: Africa appears far smaller than it is, while regions close to the poles look much larger than their real dimensions. Greenland, for example, appears only slightly smaller than Africa on the Mercator map, although it is actually 14 times smaller.

Created in 1569 by the Flemish mathematician Gerardus Mercator, the projection “unrolls” the globe onto a flat cylinder. That preserves accurate directions and shapes, making it useful for navigation, but greatly enlarges areas near the poles. An alternative, the equal-area cylindrical projection commonly known as the Gall-Peters map, presents the relative size of continents more faithfully.

the entire United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and a substantial part of Europe

· Government of TogoThe submission used this comparison to illustrate Africa’s actual size.

Togo’s submission emphasized that Africa could contain “the entire United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and a substantial part of Europe,” while still leaving considerable space. UN Secretary-General spokesman material quoted Togo’s foreign minister, Robert Dussey, as saying, “Maps shape our perception of the world. They guide education, feed the imagination and influence collective ideas.”

political agenda

· United States governmentThe United States used this phrase when rejecting the resolution.

The United States rejected the resolution, arguing that it promotes a particular “political agenda” and distracts from “the real problems of international peace, prosperity and good relations.” The resolution has no binding force, but the support of a large majority could lead to updates in curricula and technologies. Syracuse University geography professor Mark Monmonier, quoted by Reuters, said the Mercator projection is useful only for navigation and has little purpose beyond that narrow application.

the real problems of international peace, prosperity and good relations

· United States governmentThe United States said the resolution distracts from these issues.
About this summary

Originally published by Rzeczpospolita in Polish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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