India votes in favour of UNGA resolution endorsing new world map

India has voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution aimed at correcting the world map to advertise a “extra correct illustration” of continental landmasses.

The 193-member UN Normal Meeting on Friday (September 4, 2026) overwhelmingly adopted the decision “Right the map: rebalancing international cartographic illustration and selling equitable illustration of the world’s areas, notably Africa”.

The decision was sponsored by Togo, receiving 164 votes in favour, with abstentions from Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, and a lone vote in opposition to from america.

The decision famous that the Mercator projection, designed within the sixteenth century for navigational functions, stays extensively utilized in instructional, media, digital and official supplies, regardless of the appreciable distortion of landmasses to the North and South, removed from the equator.

The decision additionally famous with “concern” that “this distortion contributes to minimising the perceived sizes of Africa, Latin America and South Asia, and perpetuating an unbalanced view of the world.” In a proof of the vote within the Normal Meeting, First Secretary on the Everlasting Mission of India to the UN, Raghoo Puri, stated India “welcomes” the intention behind the decision to advertise extra correct and consultant cartographic practices.

“We imagine that maps play an essential function in how societies perceive geography and the relative scale of the world round us,” he stated.

Nevertheless, India clarified its understanding of the scope of this decision, saying, “We imagine that the decision must be understood as supporting the broader use and consideration of Equal Space map projections, and never as endorsing the Equal Earth projection or another particular map projection.”