UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly has overwhelmingly adopted a resolution encouraging countries, schools, international organizations and technology companies to use world maps that more accurately portray the relative size of Africa and other landmasses.
The resolution, known as “Correct the Map,” passed by 164 votes to one, with six abstentions. It was introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Group and supported by the African Union, which represents the continent’s 54 member states. The United States was the only country to vote against the measure.
The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection, the 16th-century map design still widely used in classrooms, media, online services and wall maps. Instead, it encourages the use of equal-area projections, particularly the Equal Earth projection, whenever the relative size of countries and continents matters.
The vote is nonbinding. No government, school, publisher or technology company is legally required to replace existing maps. But the overwhelming approval gives international backing to a long-running campaign that argues the familiar Mercator map has shaped global perceptions by making Africa, Latin America and regions near the equator look far smaller than they are.
“Africans and people of African descent are entitled to see a world map that does not diminish Africa’s size, weight and place in the world,” Togo’s foreign minister, Robert Dussey, told the General Assembly before the vote.
The measure turns a technical question of cartography into a broader debate about education, history, colonialism and the way visual representations influence how people understand the world.
The basic problem with Mercator
The Mercator projection was created in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator.
It was an important innovation for maritime navigation. The projection preserves local angles and directions, allowing sailors to draw a straight line on a map that corresponds to a constant compass bearing. That made it especially useful for ocean travel in an era of expanding European exploration and trade.
But there is a trade-off.
A spherical Earth cannot be flattened onto a rectangular map without distorting something. Different map projections preserve different features: shape, direction, distance or area. No flat map can preserve all of them perfectly.
Mercator preserves direction well, but it greatly exaggerates the size of landmasses farther from the equator. Areas near the poles appear much larger than they actually are compared with equatorial regions.
The best-known example is Greenland and Africa.
On many Mercator maps, Greenland appears close to the size of Africa. In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger than Greenland.
Africa covers approximately 30.3 million square kilometers, while Greenland covers about 2.16 million square kilometers. Africa is large enough to fit the United States, China, India and much of Europe within its borders, yet it often appears visually reduced on conventional classroom maps.
The distortion affects more than Africa.
Europe, Russia, Canada and other northern regions look larger relative to equatorial regions than they are in reality. Brazil, Indonesia, India and much of Latin America also appear diminished when compared with higher-latitude countries.
The “Correct the Map” campaign argues that repeated exposure to those visual distortions can influence how people perceive economic power, political importance and the scale of different regions.
Why Africa led the campaign
African diplomats and advocates have framed the map issue as a matter of representation and historical fairness.
The campaign’s supporters say the Mercator projection became dominant during centuries when European colonial powers controlled vast parts of Africa, Asia and the Americas. They argue that a map that visually enlarges Europe and North America while shrinking Africa reinforces outdated assumptions about the global order.
The resolution describes more accurate cartography as an act of “cognitive justice” and “memorial reparation,” according to reports on the text.
That language reflects the broader argument: maps do not only show geography. They shape how people imagine the world.
A continent made to look smaller may be subconsciously perceived as less populous, less economically significant or less politically consequential. Africa is home to more than 1.5 billion people, includes 54 countries and contains major reserves of minerals, agricultural land, energy resources and cultural diversity. Yet conventional world maps can make it seem visually secondary to regions that are much smaller in area.
The African Union welcomed the U.N. vote as a step toward a more accurate representation of the continent.
“Today’s resolution promotes equal-area maps like Equal Earth across classrooms, media, and international institutions, ensuring the world map finally reflects Africa’s true scale, weight, and place in the world,” the African Union said in a statement cited by NPR.
The measure was sponsored by Togo and supported by the African Group, which speaks collectively for African member states at the United Nations. The Bahamas also supported the initiative.
For the campaign’s advocates, the aim is not to erase the Mercator map from history or deny its navigational usefulness. It is to ensure that maps used for education, media, policy and public understanding do not misrepresent the relative size of the world’s regions.
What Equal Earth changes
The Equal Earth projection is the principal alternative endorsed in the U.N. resolution.
Developed in 2018, the Equal Earth projection is designed to preserve the relative area of continents and countries. It shows Africa, South America, India and equatorial regions much closer to their real proportional size.
The map looks unfamiliar to people accustomed to Mercator.
Africa appears dramatically larger. Greenland appears much smaller. South America expands relative to Europe. Russia, Canada and northern Europe appear reduced in comparison with conventional maps.
The design does not preserve shapes perfectly. Continents and countries look somewhat stretched or curved, particularly at the edges of the map. But advocates argue that the trade-off is worthwhile when the purpose of a map is to show comparative size.
The Equal Earth projection was designed by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Bernhard Jenny and Tom Patterson. Its visual appearance is loosely inspired by the Robinson projection, another widely used world map that aims for a balanced, visually pleasing view of the globe.
The key difference is mathematical.
An equal-area projection ensures that a country occupying twice the area of another country on Earth appears twice as large on the map. That makes it more useful for comparing continental scale, land area and geographic distribution.
The U.N. resolution encourages Equal Earth and “other equal-area maps,” rather than insisting on one universal replacement.
That distinction is important. Cartographers generally agree that the best map projection depends on the purpose.
For navigation, Mercator remains highly useful. For teaching relative size, an equal-area projection is more accurate. For showing airline routes or global distances, other projections may work better.
The resolution’s central message is not that there is one perfect map. It is that people should understand what a map is designed to preserve, and what it distorts.
What the vote does, and does not do
The General Assembly vote carries symbolic and practical weight, but it does not immediately replace maps around the world.
The resolution is nonbinding. It cannot compel map publishers, school districts, technology companies or governments to abandon Mercator maps.
It does, however, formally encourage them to adopt Equal Earth and other equal-area projections in contexts where showing true relative size is important.
Those contexts could include:
- Classroom geography materials.
- School textbooks and educational displays.
- News graphics and international reports.
- Government publications and public-information campaigns.
- International development and humanitarian maps.
- Maps used by global organizations.
- Technology platforms, including map tools and search products.
The measure explicitly does not challenge Mercator’s continued use for maritime and aerial navigation. The Togolese Foreign Ministry said the resolution “in no way challenges” Mercator for those purposes, where its directional properties remain useful.
That clarification may help address criticism that the campaign seeks to discard a map projection with real practical value.
The goal is more targeted: use Mercator when it is suited to the task, but do not use it uncritically when it distorts the very information a map is supposed to convey.
The U.S. opposition
The United States was the only country to vote against the resolution. Six countries, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, abstained.
The U.S. delegation characterized the initiative as part of a “radical ideological project,” according to U.N. reporting.
The vote did not include a detailed public explanation from Washington about whether the opposition was based on concerns about the resolution’s language, its references to colonialism and reparative justice, objections to a U.N. role in education and technology decisions, or support for retaining existing cartographic practices.
But the result placed the United States alone against a measure backed by 164 other member states, including traditional U.S. allies such as France and the United Kingdom.
Supporters of the resolution said the near-unanimous vote demonstrated broad international recognition that traditional map designs can mislead viewers about global geography.
Critics of changing the map may argue that most people understand Mercator maps as conventional representations, not political statements, and that switching projections could create confusion. They may also contend that map projection is a technical choice that should not be politicized.
Advocates respond that every map projection involves choices, and that the most familiar choices have never been neutral in their effects.
Why maps matter beyond classrooms
The U.N. action comes at a time when maps are everywhere.
They appear in textbooks, weather reports, school slides, business presentations, news coverage, mobile apps, video games, social-media posts and online mapping services. For many people, the rectangular Mercator-style world map is their default mental image of the planet.
That ubiquity is why advocates believe representation matters.
A person who sees Africa represented at a fraction of its true relative scale may not consciously believe the continent is small. But repeated visual impressions can shape assumptions about population, resources, travel distances, regional influence and global importance.
Cartographic accuracy can influence policy as well.
Development agencies, humanitarian organizations and governments use maps to communicate disease outbreaks, food insecurity, climate risks, migration patterns and infrastructure needs. When a map’s purpose is to compare the scale of affected areas, equal-area designs can provide a clearer picture.
The issue also matters for media organizations. News graphics that use Mercator-style world maps may unintentionally magnify northern countries and minimize events in the Global South. Adopting more accurate projections could change the visual framing of international stories.
Technology companies face a particularly important decision. Digital mapping systems serve billions of users, though they often rely on Mercator-like projections because they work efficiently with web tiles and zoomable maps.
The U.N. resolution encourages technology companies to consider Equal Earth and similar projections where comparative scale matters.
Whether companies act on that recommendation may determine how widely the campaign affects public understanding.
A broader lesson in map literacy
The “Correct the Map” resolution is ultimately also a call for better geographic education.
The issue is not simply whether a classroom replaces one wall map with another. It is whether students learn that all flat maps distort the Earth in some way.
A globe is the most accurate simple representation of the planet because it preserves the Earth’s spherical form. But globes are less convenient for posters, textbooks, websites and presentations.
Every flat map must choose a compromise.
Mercator preserves direction but distorts area.
Equal Earth preserves area but distorts shape.
Robinson seeks a visual balance but does not preserve any one property perfectly.
Azimuthal projections can show distances or directions accurately from a central point but distort areas far from that point.
Teaching those distinctions can help students become more sophisticated readers of maps, and more critical consumers of visual information.
The U.N. resolution specifically encourages education about the limitations of flat maps.\
That may be the most durable impact of the vote. It shifts the discussion from “Which map is correct?” to “Correct for what purpose?”
What comes next
The resolution has no automatic enforcement mechanism. Its future impact will depend on voluntary action.
African governments and campaign advocates are likely to urge schools, publishers, international agencies and technology companies to update their materials. The African Union has already framed the vote as a call for Equal Earth maps to appear in classrooms, media and global institutions.
The United Nations itself may revise maps used in reports, educational materials, exhibits and public communications when relative size is a central issue.
Publishers could add Equal Earth maps alongside Mercator maps, allowing students and readers to compare the difference directly.
Technology companies may experiment with alternate projections for educational products, world-overview pages or data visualizations.
The U.N. vote will not change the shape of the planet or eliminate the need for Mercator maps in navigation. But it could change how billions of people see the world.
For Africa, the resolution is a statement of scale and status: a continent long made to look smaller on the world’s most familiar maps should no longer be visually diminished by default.