United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to adopt a new world map that makes the African continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe, drawing ire from Washington.Aimed at “a more accurate representation” of continental landmasses, the resolution was supported by 164 countries, including India. US voted against it and six nations abstained.The new map, known as the Equal Earth cartographic projection, improves “the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world”, the resolution said. It urges member states to use the new map in place of the traditional Mercator projection.Foreign minister Robert Dussey of Togo, which sponsored the resolution, said maps “guide education, nourish imagination, and influence collective perceptions”.“They are therefore never neutral; when they present a distorted image of our planet, they risk perpetuating inaccurate representation that is passed down through generations,” he said.African Union Commission chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said, “Beyond cartography, this initiative underscores the importance of representing Africa on the basis of objective and scientifically established realities… Africa must be represented as it truly is: in its true dimensions and in its rightful place in the world.”US, however, slammed the resolution, saying such moves are “the reason this institution is losing its credibility”. Representative Yaryna Ferencevych said, “Instead of focusing on genuine problems… this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice.”The Mercator projection was designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It focused on depictions of the shapes and angles of land masses but their relative sizes were often inaccurate, largely due to the challenge of rendering a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional map.
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It inflated northern regions and compressed equatorial ones, making Europe and North America appear much larger, while shrinking Africa and South America. Africa appears to be roughly as big as Greenland, though at 30.3 million sq km, it’s about 14 times as large.France, which co-sponsored the resolution, announced Friday it would abandon the Mercator projection, in which “US, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual prominence”. Foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, “Changing maps obviously doesn’t change the world,” “But correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.”
