The United Nations Normal Meeting voted Friday to undertake a brand new world map that makes the African continent greater whereas shrinking North America and Europe, drawing ire from Washington.
Aimed toward “a extra correct illustration” of continental landmasses, the decision was supported by 164 nations whereas the US voted in opposition to it and 6 different states abstained.
The brand new map — referred to as the Equal Earth cartographic projection — improves “the accuracy of the cartographic illustration of the world,” the decision stated.
It urges member states to make use of the brand new map instead of the standard Mercator projection, which was designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569.
🎉Congratulations to the delegation of Togo 🇹🇬 on the adoption this morning by the #UNGA of decision A/80/L.104, “Appropriate the Map”, an @_AfricanUnion initiative selling extra correct and equitable international cartographic illustration, significantly of #Africa.
A major… pic.twitter.com/oxZCbeMUTt
— African Union Mission to the UN (@AfricanUnionUN) September 4, 2026
Overseas Minister Robert Dussey of Togo, which sponsored the decision, stated maps “information training, nourish the creativeness, and affect collective perceptions.”
“They’re subsequently by no means impartial; once they current a distorted picture of our planet, they danger perpetuating inaccurate illustration that’s handed down via generations.”
America nonetheless slammed the decision, saying such strikes are “the explanation this establishment is dropping its credibility.”
“As an alternative of specializing in real issues… this physique is debating map initiatives from the sixteenth century and their function in selling reparations and cognitive justice,” US consultant Yaryna Ferencevych stated forward of the vote.
‘Distorted illustration’
The Mercator projection targeted on correct depictions of the shapes and angles of land lots, however their relative sizes have been typically inaccurate — largely because of the problem of rendering a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional map.
It inflated northern areas and compressed equatorial ones, making Europe and North America seem a lot bigger, whereas shrinking Africa and South America.
A bunch of cartographers launched the Equal Earth projection in 2018. It makes Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania seem a lot bigger.
“Equal Earth preserves the relative floor areas of continents and, as a lot as potential, exhibits their shapes as they seem on a globe,” one of many cartographers, Bojan Savric, advised AFP in 2025.
France — which co-sponsored the decision in help of the brand new map — introduced Friday that it will abandon the Mercator projection.
In that map, “the US, Russia and China tackle a disproportionate visible prominence in comparison with Africa, Latin America or southeast Asia,” whereas “Greenland seems nearly as large as Africa,” Overseas Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stated.
“Altering maps clearly does not change the world,” he stated. “However correcting a distorted illustration is already an act of reality.”
The initiative comes as France is searching for to enhance relations with Africa, significantly in former colonies with which it has prickly ties.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
