Can You Guess the Real Size of Each Country on the New World Map?

Greenland appears roughly the same size as Africa on many familiar world maps. In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger. That striking mismatch is one reason the United Nations General Assembly voted 164 to 1 to promote the Equal Earth projection as an alternative to the Mercator map.

The Mercator projection, created for 16th-century maritime navigation, preserves angles and straight bearings. But its distortion grows with distance from the equator. It enlarges Europe, Russia and North America, while shrinking Africa, Latin America and South Asia on the page.

Togo introduced the resolution on behalf of the African Group, with support from the African Union. The group represents 54 African Union member states and is the largest regional voting and dialogue bloc at the UN. Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey told the General Assembly that maps influence education, imagination and collective perception, and said the resolution affirms Africa’s reality.

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radical ideological project

The United States was the only country to oppose the measure, calling it a “radical ideological project.” US representative Yaryna Ferencevych said the UN should focus on genuine problems rather than “map projects from the 16th century.” Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine abstained.

The resolution does not ban Mercator or require countries to adopt Equal Earth. It simply encourages broader use of a projection that keeps continental areas closer to their true proportions. Togo plans to hold a meeting in Lome with UNESCO, the African Union and technology companies including Google to discuss implementation. The article also presents an interactive quiz asking readers to choose which country is larger before seeing the map change between projections.

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the reason this institution is losing its credibility