Africa bigger, US smaller in UN-adopted map
United Nations, USA – The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to adopt a new world map that makes the African continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe, drawing ire from Washington.
Aimed at “a more accurate representation” of continental landmasses, the resolution was supported by 164 countries while the United States voted against it and six other states abstained.
The new map — known as the Equal Earth cartographic projection — improves “the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world,” the resolution said.
It urges member states to use the new map in place of the traditional Mercator projection, which was designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569.
Foreign Minister Robert Dussey of Togo, which sponsored the resolution, said maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”
“They are therefore never neutral; when they present a distorted image of our planet, they risk perpetuating inaccurate representation that is passed down through generations.”
Friday’s resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement, but only encourages the use of the Equal Earth projection, the UN said in its report.
The United States however slammed the resolution, saying such moves are “the reason this institution is losing its credibility.”
“Instead of focusing on genuine problems… this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice,” US representative Yaryna Ferencevych said ahead of the vote.
Resolution hailed
Africa No Filter, one of the lead campaigners for the adoption of the new map, hailed the resolution, adding: “We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day.”
Several countries hailed the adoption and urged the adoption of the Equal Earth map. “Changing the map obviously doesn’t change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on X after the vote.
The Mercator projection focused on accurate depictions of the shapes and angles of land masses, but their relative sizes were often inaccurate — largely due to the challenge of rendering a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional map.
It inflated northern regions and compressed equatorial ones, making Europe and North America appear much larger, while shrinking Africa and South America.
A group of cartographers launched the Equal Earth projection in 2018. It makes Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania appear much larger.
“Equal Earth preserves the relative surface areas of continents and, as much as possible, shows their shapes as they appear on a globe,” one of the cartographers, Bojan Savric, told AFP in 2025.
France — which co-sponsored the resolution in support of the new map — announced Friday that it would abandon the Mercator projection.
In that map, “the United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual prominence compared to Africa, Latin America or southeast Asia,” while “Greenland appears almost as big as Africa,” Jean-Noel Barrot said.
The initiative comes as France is seeking to improve relations with Africa, particularly in former colonies with which it has prickly ties. AFP, AP
The Mercator map was designed to help European navigators at sea, but advocates say it distorted landmasses by enlarging regions near the poles such as North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America.
The 2018 Equal Earth projection, on the other hand, follows the Earth’s curvature and shows continents in their true proportions.
Geographers say the traditional map is only useful for navigation.
“Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it,” according to Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse University professor of geography. AFP, AP
