The world map most of us grew up with quietly lies about the size of whole continents, and on Friday the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to do something about it.
The vote, in numbers
Member states adopted a resolution by 164 votes to one urging governments, schools, international organizations and technology companies to stop leaning on maps that shrink Africa and to use projections that show landmasses at their true relative size.
| In favor | 164 |
| Against | 1 (United States) |
| Abstentions | 6 (Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, Ukraine) |
| Status | Nonbinding recommendation |
The measure does not ban anything. It encourages equal-area maps like Equal Earth where relative size matters, and asks teachers to explain that no flat map can ever perfectly represent a round planet.
Why Mercator makes Africa look small
The culprit is the Mercator projection, drawn in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to help sailors navigate. Because straight lines on the map matched constant compass bearings, it was brilliant for plotting courses at sea. The trade-off was area: landmasses near the poles got stretched far larger than they really are.
The result is a world where Greenland can look roughly the size of Africa even though Africa is about 14 times bigger. Northern Europe, Russia and North America get the same polar inflation, while equatorial regions, from Africa to Southeast Asia, are drawn comparatively smaller than life.
The fix: Equal Earth and other equal-area maps
The resolution points to Equal Earth, a projection developed in 2018, as a map that shows every country and ocean at accurate relative size. It frames correcting Mercator’s distortion as an act of “cognitive justice and memorial reparation,” capping an African-led campaign backed by the African Union and steered in the Assembly by Togo.
“A fair map does not change the geography of the world, it changes how we see the world,” Togo’s foreign minister Robert Dussey said. France went further hours before the vote: Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Paris planned to drop Mercator for its official world maps, meaning France itself, like the United States and Russia, will now look smaller relative to equatorial countries.
| Mercator projection | Equal Earth projection | |
|---|---|---|
| Introduced | 1569, Gerardus Mercator | 2018 |
| Designed for | Navigation (keeps compass direction true) | Accurate relative size of landmasses |
| Main weakness | Inflates area near the poles | Distorts shape somewhat |
| Africa vs Greenland | Greenland looks about as big as Africa | Africa shown roughly 14x larger |
| What the UN says | Not banned, but discouraged for world maps | Recommended when relative size matters |
The lone no vote
The United States cast the only ballot against, with its representative calling the resolution part of a much larger “radical ideological project” and dismissing its reparations and “cognitive justice” language as “barnacles on our work here.”
Ukraine abstained for a different reason, warning that some Equal Earth maps depict Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia and could open a “Pandora’s box” over disputed borders. The European Union, speaking through Ireland, stressed that the measure concerns only the relative size of landmasses and has no bearing on sovereignty or recognized borders.
What a fairer map means
No projection is perfect. Every flat map sacrifices something: accurate area, true shape, straight distance or constant direction. Equal-area maps are themselves a compromise, and Mercator is not disappearing from classrooms overnight.
What changed is perspective. The vote hands near-unanimous backing to the argument, long pressed by African governments, that the way a place is drawn shapes how the world sees and values it. It lands the same week ASTIG covered how the UN is rethinking planetary risk and Southeast Asia’s global power bid.
Maps, like institutions, were drawn by somebody. This week the world’s biggest forum voted on whose version deserves to last.
