The United Nations General Assembly has passed a landmark resolution at its New York headquarters to formally phase out the traditional Mercator projection in favor of a modern cartographic model that accurately reflects the true geographical scale of Africa. Sponsored by Togo, the measure officially retires the 16th-century map standard across all official UN materials and operations. Member states voted to transition toward the 2018 Equal Earth map design, resolving centuries of visual distortion that severely minimized the southern hemisphere while disproportionately exaggerating the size of northern landmasses.
Correcting Centuries of Cartographic Distortion
First developed in 1569 by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator, the historic projection was originally designed as a navigational aid to preserve straight compass lines for maritime exploration. However, flattening a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional grid introduced severe geometric exaggerations near the poles. As a result, the standard world map long suggested that Greenland and the African continent were roughly comparable in size. In reality, Africa encompasses an area of more than 30 million square kilometers, making it approximately 14 times larger than Greenland and large enough to fit the landmasses of the United States, China, India, and much of Europe within its borders.
Delegates supporting the resolution emphasized that visual representations of the world carry profound cultural, educational, and geopolitical consequences. For generations, classrooms and international bodies have relied on maps that visually diminished developing nations across the Global South. Advocates from African nations argued that correcting this spatial imbalance is a necessary step toward geographic accuracy and balanced international diplomacy, ensuring that educational resources and policy documents reflect true planetary proportions rather than colonial-era navigational tools.
The Transition to the Equal Earth Standard
Under the newly adopted mandate, the UN will standardize its publications, statistical charts, and official presentations using the Equal Earth projection. Created in 2018 by cartographers Bojan Šavrič, Tom Patterson, and Bernhard Jenny, this contemporary map offers an equal-area representation that preserves the relative sizes of continents without creating the extreme, curved shape distortions found in older alternatives like the Gall-Peters projection. The aesthetic balance of the Equal Earth design provides a visually appealing and mathematically sound depiction of continental landmasses.
International agencies, educational publishers, and global institutions are now expected to follow the United Nations' lead in updating digital and print cartography. UN leadership outlined plans for a phased rollout across all departments, working in coordination with geographic information systems specialists to ensure accurate data migration. By adopting a modern standard that portrays every continent in its authentic proportions, the global body aims to promote fairness and scientific precision in the visual depiction of global geography.
