UN Votes to Put a More Accurate Africa on the Map

The United Nations has voted to move the world closer to a map that shows Africa at its actual scale. In New York, 164 countries backed a resolution supporting the 2018 Equal Earth projection. The United States voted against it, calling the measure “superfluous,” while six countries abstained.

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superfluous

The resolution formally retires the 16th-century Mercator projection in favour of the newer design, although it does not force governments or institutions to use one map. Its influence could still reach classrooms, everyday technology and public administration, where Mercator remains widely used.

Togo led the campaign on behalf of the African Union. The country said distorted cartography has produced lasting cognitive, educational, cultural, geopolitical and socioeconomic effects by shrinking Africa in the world’s collective imagination. Togo’s Foreign Affairs Minister Robert Dussey insisted the issue was scientific rather than political: “This discussion is not a political discussion [but] a scientific discussion, because there is scientific proof so we all have to accept the reality.”

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

Mercator was created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to help sailors navigate. Its projection makes regions near the equator look much smaller and high-latitude areas much larger. Africa appears roughly the same size as Greenland on the map, although the continent is 14 times larger.

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recognises and affirms that disproportionate cartographic representations, particularly those resulting from the Mercator projection, have 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

A petition for the #CorrectTheMap campaign says the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe could fit inside Africa with land left over. The African Union endorsed the campaign in August 2025. France also supported the resolution. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France would abandon Mercator for representations better suited to specific uses and more faithful to actual surface areas, using the Eckert IV projection, which is close to Equal Earth.

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[We] will abandon the Mercator projection in favour of map representations tailored to specific uses, more faithful to actual surface areas and in line with the recommendations of cartographers and scientists