UN backs a new world map: Africa appears larger, while the United States and Russia shrink

The United Nations General Assembly has approved a new world-map resolution designed to show the relative size of countries and regions more accurately. Africa will appear larger, while Europe, the United States and Russia will appear smaller than on the familiar Mercator map.

The vote followed calls from African countries to correct distortions that have persisted for centuries. The resolution, titled “Revising the Map,” was put forward by members of the African Union together with the Bahamas. It passed with 164 votes in favor, six abstentions and only the United States voting against it.

Yaryna Ferencevych, the United States’ deputy representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, criticized the measure after the vote. She said, “Resolutions like these and the ideological agenda they promote are no different from barnacles clinging to the work we do here, and are also why this institution is gradually losing its credibility.”

The resolution calls for greater fairness in how regions are shown around the world, particularly Africa. Its supporters argue that existing maps have symbolically reduced the continent in the public imagination. The Mercator projection, developed by European cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, remains widely used in navigation because it preserves the practical direction of lines of longitude relative to the equator.

Its weakness appears when it depicts the entire world. Areas farther from the equator look disproportionately large. Greenland, for example, can appear larger than South America and roughly the same size as Africa, even though its actual area is approximately that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, while Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland.

Critics say the projection’s longevity has magnified Europe and North America and placed them at the center of the map, reinforcing perceptions of European superiority. The resolution expresses “deep concern” that such distortions diminish awareness of the actual scale of Africa, Latin America and South Asia, and can deepen bias in environmental, geopolitical and security debates. It proposes the Equal Earth projection as an act of “reclaiming justice in perception.”

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Resolutions like these and the ideological agenda they promote are no different from barnacles clinging to the work we do here, and are also why this institution is gradually losing its credibility.