UN Adopts New Map to Reflect Africa's True Size

On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly voted to adopt a new world map, the Equal Earth cartographic projection, which aims to provide a more accurate representation of continental landmasses, particularly increasing the size of Africa while reducing that of North America and Europe. The resolution, driven by several African countries and supported by 164 nations, faced opposition from the United States, which voted against it, along with six other states that abstained.

Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey emphasized the importance of maps in shaping perceptions and education, arguing that distorted representations can perpetuate inaccuracies. The Equal Earth projection, developed by a group of cartographers in 2018, preserves the relative surface areas of continents and aims to correct the distortions of the traditional Mercator projection.

France, a co-sponsor of the resolution, announced its abandonment of the Mercator projection, highlighting the disproportionate visual prominence of northern regions compared to Africa and others.