SUMMARY
The United Nations General Assembly has backed a resolution encouraging the use of world maps that represent the relative size of continents more accurately. The resolution, led by Togo and supported by African countries, received 164 votes in favour, while the United States voted against and six countries abstained. The initiative promotes the Equal Earth projection, which shows Africa much closer to its true size than the widely used Mercator projection.
AFRICA COULD LOOK VERY DIFFERENT ON THE WORLD MAP — A map that billions of people have grown up seeing in classrooms, offices and online could increasingly give way to a different representation of the world.
The United Nations General Assembly has endorsed a resolution supporting the use of map projections that portray the world's continents more accurately by area.
The resolution received overwhelming support, with 164 countries voting in favour.
The United States was the only country to vote against it, while six countries abstained.
The initiative was sponsored by Togo and backed by members of the African Union as part of a broader campaign to address the way the world is visually represented on maps.
The proposal does not physically change the size of Africa, of course.
What changes is the way its size is represented.
WHY AFRICA WILL LOOK BIGGER
The main issue is the Mercator projection, a world-map system developed in the 16th century.
The projection was created primarily for navigation because it makes lines of constant compass direction easier to plot.
But it comes with a major trade-off.
Countries and continents become increasingly enlarged as they move farther from the Equator.
That means Europe, North America and Greenland appear much larger than their actual land areas when compared with regions closer to the Equator.
Africa, meanwhile, appears significantly smaller than it really is.
The difference becomes especially obvious when Africa is compared with Greenland.
On a traditional Mercator world map, Greenland can appear similar in size to Africa.
In reality, Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland.
THE NEW MAP USES EQUAL EARTH
The UN-backed initiative promotes the Equal Earth projection.
Equal Earth was developed in 2018 by cartographers Tom Patterson, Bojan Šavrič and Bernhard Jenny.
Unlike the Mercator projection, Equal Earth is designed to preserve the relative areas of continents and countries much more accurately.
As a result, Africa appears substantially larger on the map, while Europe and North America appear smaller relative to their actual land areas.
The change can look dramatic to someone who has spent their entire life seeing the Mercator map.
But the new representation is not making Africa larger.
It is showing a size relationship that is closer to reality.
164 COUNTRIES BACKED THE RESOLUTION
The vote at the United Nations General Assembly was overwhelmingly in favour of the proposal.
A total of 164 countries voted for the resolution.
Only the United States voted against it.
Six countries — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine — abstained.
The result gave the initiative an unusually broad level of international support.
It also turned the vote into a major diplomatic and cultural story because of the United States' decision to oppose the resolution.
WHY THE UNITED STATES OPPOSED IT
The American opposition was not based on a belief that Africa is smaller than the map suggests.
The U.S. representative criticized the initiative as an ideological exercise and argued that the United Nations should concentrate on more important global problems.
Washington's position reflects a broader disagreement over how much importance should be attached to changing established international practices for cultural or political reasons.
Supporters of the resolution see the map issue differently.
They argue that maps influence how people understand geography and the relative importance of different parts of the world.
For African governments and advocates, correcting the visual distortion is therefore about more than cartography.
AFRICA'S TRUE SIZE IS MASSIVE
Africa is the world's second-largest continent by both land area and population.
Its geographical scale is often underestimated when viewed through the Mercator projection.
Africa is large enough to contain the United States, China, India, Japan and several European countries within its territory.
Yet many conventional world maps make the continent look considerably smaller than it actually is.
This creates a powerful visual distortion.
Someone looking at a Mercator map can easily develop an inaccurate sense of how large different regions of the planet really are.
WHY THE MERCATOR MAP WAS CREATED
It would be misleading to describe the Mercator projection simply as a map designed to make Europe look powerful.
Its original purpose was navigation.
Created by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, the projection became valuable to sailors because it preserved directions in a way that made plotting courses easier.
That was an important technological advantage at the time.
The problem is that a projection designed for navigation is not necessarily the best projection for comparing the sizes of continents.
Every flat world map has to distort something because the Earth is a three-dimensional sphere.
The real question is which type of distortion the map chooses to prioritize.
NO FLAT MAP CAN SHOW EVERYTHING PERFECTLY
This is an important part of the debate that is sometimes lost in the political discussion.
There is no perfect flat map of the Earth.
Because the planet is spherical, transforming it into a flat rectangle inevitably creates distortions in area, shape, distance or direction.
The Mercator projection prioritizes navigation.
Equal Earth prioritizes a more accurate representation of relative land area.
Other projections make different compromises.
So replacing one world map with another does not mean humanity has finally created a completely distortion-free map.
It means the purpose of the map has changed.
WHY AFRICAN COUNTRIES WANTED THE CHANGE
African governments and organizations have increasingly argued that the way Africa is represented visually matters.
The continent has historically been portrayed in maps, textbooks and other educational materials using projections that significantly reduce its apparent size.
Supporters of the initiative believe this can contribute to a distorted understanding of Africa's geographical scale.
The campaign therefore connects cartography with education, representation and the broader effort to challenge remnants of colonial-era thinking.
THIS IS ALSO ABOUT EDUCATION
Maps are among the first tools children use to understand the world.
A child who repeatedly sees Greenland appearing almost as large as Africa may naturally assume that the two regions are comparable in size.
That assumption would be dramatically wrong.
Using an area-preserving projection in schools could give students a more accurate understanding of the planet's geography.
That is one of the reasons supporters want the Equal Earth projection to become more common in educational materials.
WHAT WILL ACTUALLY CHANGE?
The UN resolution does not instantly force every country to replace its existing maps.
It encourages governments, educational institutions and other organizations to consider more accurate area representations.
That distinction is important.
The Mercator projection has not been globally banned.
People will continue to encounter it, particularly in applications and situations where its navigational characteristics remain useful.
The resolution instead encourages wider adoption of projections such as Equal Earth for maps where accurately communicating the relative size of land areas is the priority.
WHY THE VOTE MATTERS BEYOND MAPS
The vote has become a symbolic issue because it reflects a broader conversation about how the world is represented.
For decades, many commonly seen world maps have visually enlarged regions in the Northern Hemisphere while shrinking areas closer to the Equator.
Supporters argue that this can reinforce an outdated mental picture of global geography.
The new initiative attempts to correct that picture.
It is therefore partly a scientific issue and partly a question of representation.
AFRICA'S SIZE CHANGES THE VISUAL STORY
Once Africa is displayed using a more area-accurate projection, its scale becomes much harder to ignore.
The continent stretches across an enormous portion of the Earth's surface.
It contains 54 internationally recognized sovereign states and has a population exceeding 1.5 billion people.
Its geographical diversity includes deserts, tropical forests, major river systems, mountains, grasslands and extensive coastlines.
Seeing the continent at its true scale provides a different visual starting point for understanding its economic and demographic importance.
EUROPE WILL LOOK SMALLER TOO
The change is not only about Africa.
Europe also appears much smaller when viewed through an area-preserving projection.
That does not mean Europe is becoming less important.
It simply means the continent's physical land area is being shown in a more proportional relationship to other parts of the planet.
The same principle applies to North America and Greenland.
The visual effect can be surprising because the traditional Mercator map has been so familiar for generations.
GREENLAND IS THE MOST OBVIOUS EXAMPLE
Greenland is perhaps the clearest demonstration of Mercator's distortion.
On many traditional world maps, the island looks enormous.
In reality, Africa is about 14 times larger.
Equal Earth makes that difference immediately more apparent.
This is why the debate has attracted so much public attention.
A simple change in map projection can completely alter people's visual understanding of the planet without changing a single physical fact about Earth's geography.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES
The resolution could also influence companies that produce digital maps, educational platforms and other geographic products.
Modern users encounter maps through smartphones, websites, classrooms, news organizations and navigation services.
If area-accurate projections become more widely accepted for educational and informational purposes, technology companies may increasingly offer alternatives to traditional world-map designs.
However, navigation applications have different technical requirements and may continue using projections optimized for their specific functions.
THE POLITICAL DEBATE WILL CONTINUE
The U.S. opposition guarantees that the issue will remain politically controversial.
Critics can argue that changing the map is largely symbolic and does little to address the economic and political challenges facing African countries.
Supporters can respond that symbols matter, particularly in education and public understanding.
Both arguments contain some truth.
A better map will not build roads, create jobs or improve electricity systems.
But accurate geographic information is still valuable because public understanding begins with basic facts.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN THE WORLD HAS ADOPTED ONE NEW MAP
Another important clarification is that the United Nations has not created a single mandatory world map for every country.
The resolution encourages the use of more accurate area representations.
Different organizations can still use different projections depending on what they are trying to communicate.
A navigation chart, a classroom map and a climate-science map may all require different approaches.
The debate is therefore less about finding one map for everything and more about choosing the appropriate projection for the purpose.
WHY THIS MOMENT IS SIGNIFICANT FOR AFRICA
For African countries, the resolution carries a symbolic significance that extends beyond geography.
The campaign was led by Togo and supported by the African Union, giving African governments a central role in an international debate over how the continent is represented.
That matters because the discussion is not being driven solely by outside organizations attempting to redesign maps of Africa.
African countries themselves are asking the international community to reconsider a familiar visual representation.
THE BIGGER QUESTION
The most interesting question is not whether Africa is actually getting bigger.
It is why the world became comfortable with maps that make some regions look dramatically larger or smaller than they really are.
Every map tells us something about the priorities of the person who designed it.
The Mercator projection tells the story of navigation.
Equal Earth places greater emphasis on comparing the actual areas of continents.
Neither completely eliminates distortion.
But they communicate different things.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
The immediate effect of the UN resolution will likely be greater attention to area-accurate world maps in schools, educational resources, media and other public-facing materials.
Governments and institutions will decide individually whether and how to adopt the recommended approach.
Technology companies may also face growing pressure to provide more geographically accurate alternatives where area comparison is important.
The Mercator projection is unlikely to disappear overnight.
But the debate could gradually change which world map people see most often.
CONCLUSION
Africa has not suddenly become larger.
What has changed is the international push to show Africa closer to its true geographical scale on world maps.
The United Nations General Assembly backed the initiative by 164 votes to one, with the United States voting against and six countries abstaining.
The resolution promotes the Equal Earth projection as a more accurate way to represent the relative size of continents.
The significance goes beyond cartography.
For supporters, it is an opportunity to correct a long-standing visual distortion and give students and the public a more accurate understanding of the planet.
For critics, the initiative risks placing too much political importance on a map while larger global problems remain unresolved.
But one fact is not controversial: Africa is vastly larger than the Mercator projection makes it appear.
The new debate is about whether the maps used to teach and describe our world should do a better job of showing that reality.
