The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution this Friday to stop using the current world map design and replace it with one more faithful to the size of the continents, especially Africa, which for centuries has appeared disproportionately small.
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The resolution, supported by 164 countries against one opposing, the United States, and six abstentions, promotes the gradual abandonment of the cartographic projection known as Mercator, used since 1569, in favor of models like Equal Earth, designed in 2018 to more accurately represent the surface area of the continents.
Only the United States opposed the resolution, while six other countries abstained. The initiative was driven by Togo.
Although the resolution does not prohibit the use of Mercator, it seeks for the UN and agencies like UNESCO to switch to using the Equal Earth projection, which “offers a more accurate representation” of the size of the continents, as detailed in the document.
Additionally, it urges Member States, international organizations, and other entities to adopt and disseminate this design.
The Foreign Minister of Togo, Robert Dussey, stated before the General Assembly that the cartographic projections used in academic manuals, media, digital platforms, and various official documents “do not faithfully reflect the actual surface area of the continents.”
“Their use for general information or educational purposes continues to have a lasting impact on the perception that entire generations have of our world,” he emphasized.
According to Dussey, these perceptions have contributed to “symbolically minimizing the size of Africa and other regions, generating an unbalanced view of world geography.”
“Maps are not merely geographic tools. They shape our understanding of the world, guide education, fuel imagination, and influence collective perceptions. Therefore, they are never neutral,” he expressed.
For this reason, correcting maps means “committing to the fidelity of facts, recognizing that all regions of the world deserve to be represented reliably, faithfully, and with dignity, and conveying to future generations a fairer, more balanced, and realistic image of the world.”
For its part, the United States delegation argued during the session that the country understands the resolution “as inseparable from a more radical and broader ideological project” and criticized that the General Assembly “is debating 19th-century map issues while talking about repair and cognitive justice.”
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