UN votes to adopt a world map showing Africa’s true size

The United Nations has voted to promote a world map that shows Africa far closer to its actual size, after African countries argued that the familiar Mercator projection makes the continent appear smaller and less important.

“

superfluous

Togo introduced the resolution roughly a year after the African Union endorsed it. All 55 African Union members support the #CorrectTheMap campaign. The resolution calls for a more equitable representation of the globe’s regions and backs the Equal Earth projection, developed in 2018 to depict countries and continents in proportions closer to their actual surface areas.

The traditional Mercator projection was designed to preserve the shapes and angles needed for navigation, but it enlarges northern regions on a flat map. Greenland appears roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger. Historians, geographers and activists have linked the projection to Western stereotypes, with some describing the effect as “cartographic colonialism.”

“

The discussion is not a political discussion [but] a scientific discussion, because there is scientific proof, so we all have to accept the reality.

The resolution received 164 votes, including support from Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Morocco and the other African member states. Germany, France, Turkey and the United Kingdom also voted in favour. Hungary, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and Venezuela abstained. The United States voted against it, with its representative calling the resolution “superfluous.”

“

The projection has had lasting cognitive, educational, cultural, geopolitical and socioeconomic effects, contributing to a drastic reduction in the perceived size of Africa and other regions of the world in the global collective imagination.

The measure is not enforceable, so governments and institutions will not be required to use Equal Earth or prohibited from using Mercator. Its adoption could nevertheless lead to changes in school curricula and the maps used in technology and governance. Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey said the debate was scientific rather than political because scientific evidence showed the proportions of the traditional projection. France also supported the resolution, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot saying the country would favour maps tailored to specific uses and more faithful to actual surface areas.

“

We will abandon the Mercator projection in favour of map representations tailored to specific uses, more faithful to actual surface areas.