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🇩🇪 Germany /Culture & Society

UN votes to replace distorted Mercator world map

From Der Spiegel · () German

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

At a glance

News Named sources Approved/passed
  • The UN General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution urging governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use equal-area maps when showing relative size.
  • Togo introduced the resolution, which won support from 164 countries, while six abstained and the United States voted against it.
  • The initiative targets distortions in the widely used Mercator projection, which can make Greenland appear comparable in size to Africa even though Africa is nearly 14 times larger.

The United Nations has voted to correct a world map that can make Greenland look as large as Africa. The resolution, introduced by Togo and backed by members of the African Union, passed with 164 votes in favor. Six countries abstained, while the United States was the only country to vote against it.

Historic moment: The world has decided to correct the map.

· Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign ministerDussey celebrated the UN vote and framed it as a correction of how the world is represented.

The vote does not ban the Mercator projection, the map used most often around the world. It calls instead on governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other equal-area maps when relative size matters.

The Mercator projection was developed by cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 for navigation. It turns the nearly spherical Earth into a flat rectangle, enlarging land areas the farther they lie from the Equator. As a result, some versions show Greenland as roughly the size of Africa. On a globe, Africa is nearly 14 times larger.

It is about justice, dignity, equality and how we represent our world.

· Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign ministerHe argued that the issue carries broader political and social meaning beyond cartography.

Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey called the vote a “historic moment” and said the issue went beyond cartography. He linked the map’s correction to justice, dignity and equality, arguing that inherited representations have distorted perceptions of Africa and other regions. The African Union has said the distortion affects education, media and politics. Cartographers developed Equal Earth in 2018 to present the sizes of all continents, especially Africa, more accurately.

Correcting the map means correcting the way we see the world.

· Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign ministerDussey connected map design with perceptions of Africa and other regions.
About this summary

Originally published by Der Spiegel in German. 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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