UN Recommends Equal Earth Map to Correct Mercator Distortions

Overview

• The UN General Assembly voted on Friday, Sept. 4 to approve a nonbinding resolution by 164 votes to 1 with six abstentions that recommends the Equal Earth equal‑area projection as an alternative to the Mercator map.
• Equal Earth is an equal‑area projection developed to preserve true land sizes so equatorial regions such as Africa, South America and South Asia appear closer to their real proportions rather than shrunken by Mercator’s polar exaggeration.
• The initiative was led by Togo with African Union backing and framed as correcting a long‑standing cartographic bias; France said it will stop using Mercator in official maps after the UN action while the United States cast the lone opposing vote calling the move ideological.
• Practical implementation is now a planning exercise: Togo and partners will hold consultations with UNESCO, AU members and mapping technology companies in early 2027 and national agencies such as Brazil’s IBGE have begun releasing maps aligned with the new projection.
• The resolution carries political weight but not legal force, so changes to school curricula, media maps and digital platforms are expected to be gradual and voluntary while Mercator remains in use for navigation and legacy technical systems.