UN endorses a new map of Africa

Africa appeared closer to its real size on a new world map endorsed by the UN General Assembly on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. The resolution was submitted by Togo and supported by African Union member states.

It passed with 164 votes in favor. The United States was the only country to vote against it, while six countries did not vote. The resolution encourages the use of maps that represent the relative size of continents more accurately.

The proposed map uses Equal Earth, a projection created in 2018 to preserve the proportion of areas. It offers a different picture from the Mercator projection, developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. Mercator’s system proved useful for maritime navigation, but it enlarges areas as they approach the North and South Poles.

Because much of Africa lies near the equator, the continent appears smaller than its actual size when compared with northern regions such as Greenland. Greenland is often shown as nearly the same size as Africa on a Mercator map, although Africa is actually about 14 times larger than Greenland.

The article places the decision within the long history of mapping Africa. Ancient Greeks and Romans, followed by scholars in the Arab world, gathered information through trade, travel and exploration. The second-century geographer Claudius Ptolemy helped establish scientific geography through his use of longitude and latitude in Geographia. As maritime travel expanded, maps added detail about Africa’s coasts, rivers, mountains and cities. Yet representing a spherical Earth on a flat surface remains difficult: every projection distorts some combination of area, shape, distance or direction.