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4w ago

UN General Assembly Endorses Equal Earth Map to Restore Africa’s Size

The non-binding vote urges schools, publishers and tech platforms to use equal-area projections where relative land size matters, signaling voluntary steps toward wider map changes.

FILE - Soldiers look at a world map as they wait to board a flight in Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on the way home after completing a deployment in Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011. (AP Photo/David Goldman, file)
A version of the Equal Earth map with Oceania at the center
The Equal Earth projection accurately reflects countries' relative sizes.
Image

Overview

  • The General Assembly voted on Friday to back a Togo-led, African Union–backed resolution promoting the Equal Earth and other equal-area projections, passing 164 in favor, 1 against and 6 abstentions.
  • Togo’s foreign minister said the move is a scientific correction to Mercator’s visual distortion and that Togo will revise its school geography materials and convene AU members and partners to coordinate adoption.
  • France signaled it will drop Mercator for public maps, while the United States cast the sole no vote, calling the resolution ideological and a distraction from other UN priorities.
  • Several countries abstained because of technical and political concerns over how equal-area maps depict disputed or occupied territories, so wider adoption will require diplomatic and technical talks with UNESCO, mapping firms and governments.
  • The change responds to a centuries-old cartographic flaw: Mercator inflates polar regions so Greenland can appear similar in size to Africa even though Africa is about 14 times larger, and Equal Earth preserves relative area at the cost of some shape distortion.