The United Nations General Assembly has given this Friday its "green light" to a resolution driven by Togo and supported by the African Union that proposes abandoning the traditional Mercator map projection and replacing it with another that reflects more accurately the real size of continents like Africa and regions like Latin America.
The document, approved by 164 countries and with a single vote against, that of the United States, in addition to six abstentions, states that "map distortions in the size of continents, inherited from history, have contributed to misconceptions, particularly leading to a symbolic minimization of Africa in the collective imagination."
In the same vein, the resolution emphasizes "the need to promote more accurate and scientifically grounded map representations of the globe" and encourages member states, international organizations, and other involved entities to incorporate the Equal Earth projection, which represents countries and continents respecting their real proportions.
"The map is never a neutral object. It shapes imagination, influences the perception of the place occupied by peoples and continents in the world, and sometimes from the school stage onward, it can maintain representations that do not correspond to geographical reality," argued Togo's Foreign Minister, Robert Dussey, before the vote, in a meeting with the permanent representatives of the member states of the African Union (AU).
The projection devised by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569, conceived to facilitate maritime navigation, continues to be the international standard despite increasing the distortion of surfaces the further they are from the equator.
According to the text adopted by the Assembly, the use of the Mercator projection contributes to visually reducing the magnitude of Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, thus reinforcing an unbalanced view of the planet. In contrast, the Equal Earth projection, presented in 2018, faithfully preserves the real proportions of different geographical areas, offering a more equitable and balanced image of the world.