UN votes to move past 16th-century map long seen as diminishing Africa

Togo led the push for equal-area maps over the 16th-century Mercator projection.

UN Photo: Robert Dussey, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Togo (at podium and screens)

UN backs fairer world map

The UN General Assembly voted 164 to one to endorse a resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true size of continents, capping an African-led campaign against the 16th-century Mercator projection, still the world's most widely used map.

The United States cast the sole vote against the resolution, calling it part of a "radical ideological project." Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine abstained.

The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or mandate a replacement. It instead encourages governments, schools, international organizations, and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other equal-area maps when relative size matters, and to teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.

Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer, devised his projection in 1569 to help sailors plot courses, since straight lines on the map correspond to constant compass directions. That utility came at the cost of area accuracy: landmasses appear increasingly enlarged the farther they are from the equator.

Greenland, for instance, can look roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is about 14 times larger, with Northern Europe and North America similarly magnified relative to equatorial regions.

Togo led the negotiations on behalf of the African group, building on a campaign backed by the African Union. The resolution describes correcting the distortion as an act of "cognitive justice and memorial reparation," and points to Equal Earth, developed in 2018, as a projection that more accurately represents relative size.

Maps shape our understanding of the world," Togo's foreign minister, Robert Dussey, said before the vote. "They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions," Dussey said the effort was not meant to condemn Mercator, whose navigational usefulness he acknowledged, or to impose a single projection. "A fair map does not change the geography of the world; it changes how we see the world," he said.

The American representative said the resolution "mocks the work and purpose of this institution," calling it part of a larger ideological project. The representative singled out the resolution's references to reparations and "cognitive justice," calling such initiatives "barnacles on our work here and the reason this institution is losing its credibility."

France moved in the opposite direction. Hours before the vote, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced Paris was abandoning Mercator for its world maps, aligning France with the African Union's effort, a shift that means France will itself appear smaller relative to equatorial countries.

Ukraine said it supported correcting distortions affecting Africa and the Global South but objected to how some Equal Earth maps depict Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, warning that endorsing the projection without safeguards could open a "Pandora's box" over disputed territories.

The European Union, speaking through Ireland, supported the resolution but stressed it applied only to relative landmass size and had no bearing on sovereignty, territorial status, or recognized borders. Ireland added that the EU's support did not constitute endorsement of the maps shown on the Equal Earth website.

The resolution itself acknowledges that no map projection can perfectly reproduce the Earth's curved surface on a flat plane, with each type sacrificing area, shape, distance, or direction. The measure is nonbinding, and Mercator is not being retired. But the vote gave near-unanimous international backing to the argument that map choices can shape how generations understand the world.

What do you guys think?

Source: UN