The United Nations General Assembly endorsed a new world map on Friday that accurately represents the true landmass of Africa. This decision marks the culmination of a campaign spearheaded by African nations and advocacy groups.
Sponsored by Togo and supported by the African Union, the resolution passed with 164 member states voting in favor. The United States was the sole vote against the measure, while six countries—Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine—abstained.
The resolution encourages governments and organizations globally to transition away from the 16th-century Mercator map and adopt the Equal Earth projection, which geographers and advocates praise for showing relative land sizes accurately. Under the traditional Mercator projection, Greenland and Africa appear roughly equal in size, whereas the Equal Earth model shows Africa is actually 14 times larger than Greenland.
The UN noted that the resolution does not ban the Mercator map or mandate a replacement, but rather promotes the use of the Equal Earth projection.
Maps shape our understanding of the world, stated Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey prior to the vote. They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions. He added that certain projections used for centuries portray Africa and other global regions in ways that do not reflect their actual landmass, so correcting the map also means correcting a perception.
Advocacy group Africa No Filter welcomed the decision, stating that they want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses, and on digital platforms used daily by billions of people.
International representatives also expressed support following the decision. 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 posted on X.
Designed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to aid European maritime navigation, the legacy Mercator map distorts landmasses by enlarging polar regions like North America and Greenland while shrinking equatorial areas like Africa and South America. Created in 2018, the Equal Earth projection accounts for the curvature of the Earth to display continents in accurate proportions. Geographers note that the Mercator map’s utility is strictly limited. Syracuse University geography professor Mark Monmonier stated that outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.
