UN backs new world maps with more realistic proportions

The U.N. General Assembly has endorsed a push for world maps that show the continents in more realistic proportions. The resolution received support from 164 member states, while the United States voted against it and six countries abstained.

Introduced by Togo and the African Union, the resolution calls on states and international organizations to adopt cartographic representations such as Equal Earth. The projection gives Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania a larger appearance than they have on many commonly used maps.

The proposal seeks to move away from the Mercator map, which was designed for navigation and artificially enlarges areas at high latitudes. The projection is associated with the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, who was born in 1512.

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Maps shape our understanding of the world

“Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey told the General Assembly. He said maps are never neutral and can “present a distorted picture of our planet and reinforce false ideas passed down from generation to generation.”

Geographers created the Equal Earth map in 2018 to represent the relative sizes of continents as accurately as possible. The resolution encourages its broader use, but does not itself require countries or organizations to replace their existing maps.

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present a distorted picture of our planet and reinforce false ideas passed down from generation to generation