The United Nations Votes 164-1 to "Correct the Map" on Africa's Size

The UN General Assembly voted 164 to one, with six abstentions, to adopt the "Correct the Map" resolution, an effort to change how Africa and other regions appear on world maps. The United States cast the lone vote against it. Introduced by Togo on behalf of the African Group and backed by the African Union, the measure isn't legally binding and doesn't force anyone to abandon the Mercator projection. Instead, it's the right first step: a nudge toward equal-area alternatives like the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately reflect the true relative size of countries and continents.

The case for this is really about honesty in a tool billions of people learn from every day. As Togo's Foreign Minister Robert Dussey put it, "Maps shape our understanding of the world. They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions." He added, "It's time for us in Africa to take responsibility to change what we can change ourselves."

That's the heart of the justification, the 1569 Mercator projection was built for navigation, not classrooms, yet it became the default visual reference for how people picture the planet. Its distortion inflates regions near the poles while shrinking Africa and other equatorial areas, feeding "longstanding misconceptions about Africa's size and importance."

Cartographer Tom Patterson, who co-created Equal Earth in 2018, said the consequence is concrete: "If you're using the Mercator map as a world map, say, in the classroom, students would just have a completely warped view of the size of countries in the world."

Correcting that distortion isn't cosmetic; it's about giving Africa its accurate visual weight in education, media, and international institutions. The African Union captured this stake in the outcome, saying the resolution "ensur[es] the world map finally reflects Africa's true scale, weight, and place in the world." Advocate Carlos Lopes called it "an emotional day," and even Patterson admitted he "never imagined this" when the projection was created.

The U.S. dissented sharply, with a UN statement calling such resolutions "barnacles" that damage the institution's credibility; but a near-unanimous vote suggests most member states saw a low-cost, non-binding fix to a genuine, centuries-old distortion as clearly worth making.

Link: NPR