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🇳🇬 Nigeria /Culture & Society

UN backs proposal for a new world map that shows Africa’s true size

From The Punch · () English

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

At a glance

News Named sources Approved/passed
  • The UN General Assembly backed the Equal Earth projection by 164 votes, while the United States opposed it and six countries abstained.
  • The proposal encourages countries to replace the Mercator projection, which distorts the relative sizes of landmasses, especially by enlarging northern regions and shrinking equatorial ones.
  • Togo led the initiative, France co-sponsored it and announced that it would abandon the Mercator projection.

The United Nations General Assembly has backed a new world map that makes Africa look closer to its actual size, shrinking the visual dominance of North America and Europe. The resolution won support from 164 countries. The United States voted against it, while six countries abstained.

Known as the Equal Earth projection, the map is described in the resolution as “a relevant option for improving the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world.” It urges UN member states to use it instead of the Mercator projection, the 1569 map developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator for maritime navigation.

guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.

· Robert DusseyTogo’s foreign minister described the influence maps have on public understanding.

Togo drove the resolution. Its Foreign Minister, Robert Dussey, said maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.” He added: “They are therefore never neutral, when they present a distorted image of our planet, they risk perpetuating inaccurate representation that are passed down through generation.”

They are therefore never neutral, when they present a distorted image of our planet, they risk perpetuating inaccurate representation that are passed down through generation.

· Robert DusseyDussey argued that distorted maps can perpetuate inaccurate representations.

The United States criticized the initiative before the vote. US representative Yaryna Ferencevych said the debate was “the reason this institution is losing its credibility,” arguing that the body should focus on “genuine problems” rather than 16th-century map projects and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice.

The Mercator projection preserves the shapes and angles of landmasses but misrepresents their relative areas because it transfers a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional surface. It makes Europe and North America appear larger while reducing Africa and South America. Cartographers introduced Equal Earth in 2018 to preserve the relative surface areas of continents while showing their shapes as they appear on a globe.

the reason this institution is losing its credibility.

· Yaryna FerencevychThe US representative criticized the UN debate before the vote.

France, which co-sponsored the resolution, said it would stop using Mercator. Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the projection gives the United States, Russia and China disproportionate visual prominence, while making Greenland appear nearly as large as Africa. “Changing maps obviously doesn’t change the world,” he said, “but correcting a distorted repre.”

Changing maps obviously doesn’t change the world, but correcting a distorted repre

· Jean-Noel BarrotFrance’s foreign minister discussed the limits and purpose of changing map projections.
About this summary

Originally published by The Punch in English. 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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